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The History of Chivalry

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Title: The History of Chivalry

Author: G. P. R. James


        
Release date: August 19, 2012 [eBook #40537]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF CHIVALRY ***

  THE HISTORY OF CHIVALRY.


  BY G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.,
  AUTHOR OF "DE L'ORME," "DARNLEY," "RICHELIEU," ETC.


  NEW YORK:
  HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
  82 CLIFF STREET.




PREFACE.


In writing the pages which follow this Preface, I have had to encounter
the difficulty of compressing very extensive matter into an extremely
limited space. As the subject was, in my eyes, a very interesting one, and
every particular connected with it had often been food for thought and
object of entertainment to myself, the task of curtailing was the more
ungrateful: nor should I have undertaken it, had I not been convinced by
my publisher that one volume would be as much as the public in general
would be inclined to read. I wished to write upon Chivalry and the
Crusades, because I fancied that in the hypotheses of many other authors I
had discovered various errors and misstatements, which gave a false
impression of both the institution and the enterprise; and I have
endeavoured, in putting forth my own view of the subject, to advance no
one point, however minute, which cannot be justified by indisputable
authority. A favourite theory is too often, in historical writing like the
bed of the ancient Greek; and facts are either stretched or lopped away to
agree with it: but to ensure as much accuracy as possible, I have taken
pains to mark in the margin of the pages the different writers on whose
assertions my own statements are founded, with a corresponding figure, by
which each particular may be referred to its authority.

In regard to these authors themselves, it seems necessary here to give
some information, that those persons who are inclined to inquire beyond
the mere surface may know what credit is to be attached to each.

On the first crusade we have a whole host of contemporary writers, many of
whom were present at the events they describe. Besides these are several
others, who, though they wrote at an after-period, took infinite pains to
render their account as correct as possible. The authors I have
principally cited for all the earlier facts of the Holy War are, William
of Tyre, Albert of Aix, Fulcher of Chartres, Raimond of Agiles, Guibert of
Nogent, Radulph of Caën, and Robert, surnamed the Monk.

William of Tyre is, beyond all doubt, the most illustrious of the many
historians who have written on the crusades. Born in Palestine, and though
both educated for the church and raised step by step to its highest
dignities, yet mingling continually in the political changes of the Holy
Land--the preceptor of one of its kings--frequently employed in embassies
to Europe, and ultimately Archbishop of Tyre and Chancellor of the kingdom
of Jerusalem, William possessed the most extensive means of gathering
materials for the great work he has left to posterity. He brought to his
task, also, a powerful mind, as well as considerable discrimination; and
was infinitely superior in education and every intellectual quality to the
general chroniclers of his age. He was not born, however, at the time of
the first crusade; and consequently, where he speaks of the events of
that enterprise, we may look upon him as an historian, clear, talented,
elegant, and not extremely credulous; but we must not expect to find the
vivid identity of contemporaneous writing. In regard to the history of his
own days he is invaluable, and in respect to that of the times which
preceded them, his work is certainly superior, as a whole, to any thing
that has since been written on the subject.

A much more vivid and enthusiastic picture of the first crusade is to be
found in Albert of Aix, from whom William of Tyre borrowed many of his
details; but the Syrian Archbishop, living long after, saw the events he
recounted as a whole, rejected much as false that Albert embraced as true,
and softened the zealous fire which the passions and feelings of the
moment had lighted up in the bosom of the other. Albert himself was not
one of the crusaders; but living at the time, and conversing continually
with those who returned from the Holy Land, he caught, to an extraordinary
extent, the spirit of the enterprise, and has left behind him a brilliant
transcript of all the passed-by dreams and long-extinguished enthusiasms
of his day.

Thus, as a painting of manners and customs, the _Chronicon
Hierosolymitanum_ is one of the most valuable records we possess, and the
account there given of Peter the Hermit and _Gautier sans avoir_ is in
many points more full and comprehensive than any other.

Fulcher of Chartres set out for the Holy Land with Stephen, Count of
Blois, one of the first crusaders. He soon after became chaplain to
Baldwin, the brother of Godfrey de Bouillon, and ended his days a canon of
the Holy Sepulchre. His relation is useful in many respects, especially in
regard to the march of the crusaders through Italy--the proceedings of
Baldwin at Edessa, and the history of Jerusalem for several years after
its conquest. His style, however, is tumid and circumlocutory, and his
credulity equal to that of Raimond d'Agiles.

Raimond d'Agiles accompanied the Count of Toulouse on the first crusade,
in quality of chaplain. Superstitious to the most lamentable degree, and
as bigoted in party politics as in religion, he wrote as he lived, like a
weak and ignorant man. Nevertheless there is, in his account, much
excellent information, detailed with simplicity; and very often, through
the folly of the historian, we arrive at truths which his prejudices
concealed from himself.

Guibert of Nogent did not visit the Holy Land; but he lived during the
first crusade, and, in common with all Europe, felt deeply interested in
the fate of that expedition. He examined and noted with accuracy all the
anecdotes which reached Europe, and painted, with great vivacity, scenes
that he had not himself witnessed. In his account of the crusade many
circumstances, evincing strongly the spirit of the age, are to be met with
which do not appear elsewhere; and, as we have every reason to feel sure
of his general accuracy, it is but fair to suppose that these are well
founded.

Radulph, or Raoul, of Caën, is inflated in style, and often inexact; but
he is perhaps less superstitious than any other chronicler of the
crusades. By poetical exaggeration, he often renders his narrative
doubtful; yet, as the biographer of Tancred, he tends to elucidate much
that would otherwise have remained in darkness. Robert, called the Monk,
was present at the council of Clermont, at which the first crusade was
determined; and, though he did not immediately take the Cross, he set out
for the Holy Land not long after, and was present at the siege of
Jerusalem. He is, in general, accurate and precise; and, though not a
little credulous in regard to visions, apparitions, and such imaginations
of the day, he is on the whole more calm, clear, and exact than any other
contemporary author.

Besides these writers, I have had occasion to cite several others of less
authority. Of these, Baldric bears the highest character; and,
notwithstanding the fact of his not having been present at the crusade, he
is in general accurate. Tudebodus is both brief and imperfect. Matthew of
Edessa deserves little or no credit; and the part of the Alexiad which
refers to the first crusade is far more likely to mislead than to assist.
The most important part, of the whole work, as it is published at present,
consists in the notes of Ducange. William of Malmsbury is more useful, but
still his account is merely a repetition of what we find in other sources.
For all the affairs of Normandy, I have consulted Orderic, Vital, and
William of Jumieges.

The history of William of Tyre was afterward continued by several writers,
the chief of whom is an author taking the title of Bernard the Treasurer.
A Latin version of his book was published by Muratori: Martenne, however,
has since printed a work from an old French manuscript, the identity of
which with the account of Bernard the Treasurer has been proved by Mansi.
This work is one of the most interesting extant; for although it wants
entirely either the power or the grace of William of Tyre's composition,
and is full of errors, in respect to every thing beyond the immediate
limits of the Holy Land, yet there is a simple and interesting
minuteness--an individuality of tone through the whole, where it relates
to the affairs of Syria, which could not have been given but by an
eyewitness. Even the old French in which it is written, slightly different
from the exact language of France at the same period, gives it a peculiar
character, and stamps it as the work of a Syrian Frank. Another
continuation of William of Tyre is extant, by a Suabian of the name of
Herold. This, however, is a much later composition, and possesses few of
the qualities of the other. The Cardinal de Vitry also wrote an
abbreviated history of the Crusades, bringing it down to his own time A.
D. 1220. His work is principally to be consulted for the account it gives
of the events which passed under the author's own eyes, while Bishop of
Acre, and for a great many curious particulars concerning the manners and
customs of the Saracens, which are to be found in no other work. The
second book of the Cardinal de Vitry's History has been omitted, I cannot
conceive why, in the Gesta Dei per Francos. It is, nevertheless,
infinitely valuable, as showing the horrible state of the Christians of
Palestine, and displaying those vices and weaknesses which eventually
brought about the ruin of the Latin kingdom.

The authorities for the second crusade are lamentably few, and by their
very paucity show what a change had come over the spirit of the age in the
short space of fifty years. The only eyewitnesses who have written on the
subject, as far as I can discover, are Odo, a priest of Deuil, or
Diagolum, in the neighbourhood of Paris, and Otho, Bishop of Freysinghen.
The first of these authors followed Louis VII. to the Holy Land as his
chaplain, and his account is, more properly speaking, an epistle to the
famous Suger, Abbot of St. Denis, than a chronicle.

Otho of Freysinghen was nearly related to the emperor Conrad, whom he
accompanied on his unfortunate expedition. Both these authors, therefore,
had the best means of obtaining information; and in the writings of each
there is an air of truth and sincerity, which does much towards
conviction. I have had occasion in speaking of this crusade to cite
casually a number of authors, of whom it is not necessary to give any very
detailed account. Their works are to be found in the admirable collections
of Dom Bouquet, Duchesne, Martenne, or Muratori.

Wherever I have been obliged to quote from any of the Arabian writers, I
am indebted to the extracts of Monsieur Reinaud.

In regard to the crusade of Richard Coeur de Lion and Philip Augustus; for
the history of the first, I have borrowed from Benedict of Peterborough,
from Hovedon, and especially from Vinesauf, whose work is inestimable.
These, with the other English authorities I have cited, are too well known
to need comment. Having some time ago written a romance, not yet
published, on the history of Philip Augustus, I had previously studied
almost all the old chroniclers who speak of that monarch. The most
important treatise on his reign is the work of Rigord, who was at once
monk, physician, and historiographer at the court of Philip. William the
Breton, one of the king's chaplains, continued his history in prose, from
the period where Rigord abandoned the task. He also wrote a bombastic poem
on the reign of his patron, which, however exaggerated and absurd, is
useful as an historical document, and a painting of the manners and
customs of the time. On the taking of Constantinople by the French, I have
found no want of authorities. Villehardouin, one of the principal actors
in the scenes he describes, has been my chief source of information. I
have also met with much in Nicetas, who was present; and I have confirmed
the evidence of other writers, by the chronicle in the Rouchy dialect,
published by Monsieur Buchon, and by the metrical chronicle of Philippe
Mouskes in the same collection. I need hardly say that the works of
Ducange have proved invaluable in every part of my inquiry, and that his
history of Constantinople under its French monarchs both gave me facts and
led me to authorities.

Joinville is the principal writer on the crusade of St. Louis. He was an
eyewitness, a sufferer, and a principal actor in the scenes he describes.
Of all old chroniclers, with the exception, perhaps, of Froissart,
Joinville offers the most original, simple, and delightful painting of
times and manners long gone by. With the notes of Ducange, his work is an
erudite repertory for antique manners and usages, and may be read and
reread with gratification, and studied deeply with advantage.

The folio edition in my own library comprises the Observations, and
Dissertations of Ducange, and the Commentaries of Claud Menard; together
with the Establishments of St. Louis, and a curious treatise upon the
ancient law of France, by Pierre de Fontaines. All these works afford a
great insight into the spirit of that day; and many other particulars are
to be found in the _Branche aux royaux Lignages_, and in the Sermon of
Robert de Sainceriaux. Besides the authors I have here particularized, I
have had occasion to cite casually a great number of others, whose names,
with some account of the works of each, may be found in the _Manuel_ of
Brunet. Vertot also has furnished us with much information concerning the
Knights of St. John; and Dupuy, Raynouard, &c. have spoken largely of the
Templars. I cannot close the enumeration of authors to whom I am under
obligations for information or instruction without mentioning M. Guizot,
one of the most clearsighted and unprejudiced of all modern historians.
His views of causes I have often adopted, sometimes with very slight
modifications, and sometimes with none; and, in all instances to which his
writings extend, I have been indebted to him for light to conduct me
through the dark sanctuary of past events, to the shrine of Truth, even
where he has not unveiled the deity herself. I can only regret that his
essays did not embrace more of the very comprehensive subject on which I
was called to treat.

Several motives have impelled me to give this long account of my
authorities; one of which motives was, that often, in reading works on
history, I have myself wished that the sources from which facts were
derived had been laid open to my examination; but still, my principal view
in the detail was, to show the ground on which I had fixed opinions
directly opposed to those of several other authors. In many cases, the
aspect under which I have seen the events of the Crusades has been
entirely different from that under which Mills has regarded them, and I
felt myself called upon not to attack any position of a clever writer and
a learned man, without justifying myself as completely as possible.

In regard to my own work I shall say nothing, but that I have spared
neither labour nor research to make it as correct as if it had appeared
under a much more imposing form. In space, I have been confined; and in
time, I have been hurried: but I have endeavoured to remedy the one
inconvenience, by cutting off all superfluous matter; and to guard against
evil consequences from the other, by redoubling my own exertions. Whether
I have succeeded or not the world must judge; and if it does judge with
the same generous lenity which it has extended to my other productions, I
shall have every reason to be both satisfied and grateful.




CONTENTS.


                                                                      Page

  CHAPTER I.

  A Definition, with Remarks and Evidence--An Inquiry into the
  Origin of Chivalry--Various Opinions on the Subject--Reasons
  for doubting the great Antiquity of Chivalry, properly so
  called--The State of Society which preceded it, and of that
  which gave it Birth--Its Origin and early Progress.                   17


  CHAPTER II.

  Of Chivalrous Customs--Education--Grades--Services on the
  Reception of a Knight--On Tournaments--Jousts--Combats at
  Outrance--Passages of Arms--The Round Table--Privileges of
  Knighthood--Duties of Knighthood.                                     31


  CHAPTER III.

  The Progress of Chivalry in Europe--Exploits--That some great
  Enterprise was necessary to give Chivalry an extensive and
  permanent Effect--That Enterprise presented itself in the
  Crusades--Pilgrimage to Jerusalem--Haroun Al Raschid--
  Charlemagne--Cruelties of the Turks--Pilgrimages continued--
  Peter the Hermit--Council of Clermont.                                53


  CHAPTER IV.

  The Effects of the Council of Clermont--State of France--
  Motives of the People for embracing the Crusade--Benefits
  produced--The Enthusiasm general--Rapid Progress--The first
  Bodies of Crusaders begin their March--Gautier sans avoir--
  His Army--Their Disasters--Reach Constantinople--Peter the
  Hermit sets out with an immense Multitude--Storms Semlin--
  Defeated at Nissa--His Host dispersed--The Remains
  collected--Joins Gautier--Excesses of the Multitude--The
  Italians and Germans separate from the French--The Germans
  exterminated--The French cut to pieces--Conduct of Alexius.           73


  CHAPTER V.

  The Chivalry of Europe takes the Field--The Leaders--Godfrey
  of Bouillon--Conducts his Army towards Constantinople--Hugh
  the Great--Leads his Army through Italy--Embarks for
  Durazzo--Taken Prisoner--Liberated--Robert, Duke of
  Normandy--Winters in Italy--Arrives at Constantinople--
  Robert, Count of Flanders--Joins the rest--Boemond of
  Tarentum--Tancred--Their March--Defeat the Greeks--Boemond
  does Homage--Tancred avoids it--The Count of Toulouse
  arrives--Refuses to do Homage--Robert of Normandy does
  Homage.                                                               89


  CHAPTER VI.

  Germ of After-misfortunes already springing up in the
  Crusade--Siege of Nice--First Engagement with the Turks--
  Siege continued--The Lake occupied--Surrender of Nice to the
  Emissaries of Alexius--Discontent--March towards Antioch--The
  Army divides into two Bodies--Battle of Doryloeum--Dreadful
  March through Phrygia--Adventures of Baldwin and Tancred--
  Arrival at Antioch--The City invested                                109


  CHAPTER VII.

  The Host of the Crusade invests Antioch--Description of that
  City--Difficulties and Errors of the Crusaders--
  Improvidence--Famine--Spies--Desertions--Embassy from the
  Calif of Egypt--Succours from the Genoese and Pisans--
  Battle--Feats of the Christian Knights--Boemond keeps up a
  Communication within the Town--The Town betrayed to the
  Christians--Massacres--Arrival of an Army from Persia--The
  Christians besieged in Antioch--Famine--Desertions--Visions--
  Renewed Enthusiasm--Diminished Forces of the Christians--
  Battle of Antioch--The Crusaders victorious--Spoils--Disputes
  with the Count of Toulouse--The Chiefs determine to repose at
  Antioch--Ambassadors sent to Alexius--Fate of their Embassy          136


  CHAPTER VIII.

  Pestilence in Antioch--Death of the Bishop of Puy--The Chiefs
  separate--Siege of Marrah--Cannibalism--Disputes between the
  Count of Toulouse and Boemond--The Count marches towards
  Jerusalem--Siege of Archas--Godfrey of Bouillon marches--
  Siege of Ghibel--Treachery of Raimond--Fraud of the Holy
  Lance investigated--Ordeal of Fire--Decisive Conduct of the
  Crusaders towards the Deputies of Alexius, and the Calif of
  Egypt--Conduct of the Crusaders towards the Emir of Tripoli--
  First Sight of Jerusalem--Siege and Taking of the City--
  Fanatical Massacres                                                  162


  CHAPTER IX.

  Election of a King--Godfrey of Bouillon--Sketch of the
  History of Jerusalem--Death of the chief Crusaders--New
  Bodies of Crusaders set out from Europe--Their Destruction in
  Asia Minor--Armed Pilgrimages--The Northern Armaments--The
  Venetians--The Genoese and Pisans--Anecdotes of the
  Crusaders--Battle of the Children at Antioch--The Thafurs--
  Baldwin's Humanity well repaid--Superstitions--Arms of the
  Crusaders--Of the Turks--Hospitallers--Templars                      175


  CHAPTER X.

  Consequences of the Loss of Edessa--The State of France
  unfavourable to a new Crusade--View of the Progress of
  Society--Causes and Character of the Second Crusade--St.
  Bernard--The Emperor of Germany takes the Cross, and sets
  out--Louis VII. follows--Conduct of the Germans in Greece--
  Their Destruction in Cappadocia--Treachery of Manuel
  Comnenus--Louis VII. arrives at Constantinople--Passes into
  Asia--Defeats the Turks on the Meander--His Army cut to
  pieces--Proceeds by Sea to Antioch--Fate of his remaining
  Troops--Intrigues at Antioch--Louis goes on to Jerusalem--
  Siege of Damascus--Disgraceful Failure--Conrad returns to
  Europe--Conduct of Suger, Abbot of St. Denis--Termination of
  the Second Crusade                                                   198


  CHAPTER XI.

  Progress of Society--The Rise of Poetry in modern Europe--
  Troubadours--Trouveres--Various Poetical Compositions--Effect
  of Poetry upon Chivalry--Effect of the Crusades on Society--
  State of Palestine after the Second Crusade--Cession of
  Edessa to the Emperor Manuel Comnenus--Edessa completely
  subjected by the Turks--Ascalon taken by the Christians--
  State of Egypt under the last Califs of the Fatimite Race--
  The Latins and the Atabecks both design the Conquest of
  Egypt--Struggles for that Country--Rise of Saladin--Disputes
  among the Latins concerning the Succession of the Crown--Guy
  of Lusignan crowned--Saladin invades Palestine--Battle of
  Tiberias--Fall of Jerusalem--Conquest of all Palestine--Some
  Inquiry into the Causes of the Latin Overthrow                       219


  CHAPTER XII.

  The News of the Fate of Palestine reaches Europe--The
  Archbishop of Tyre comes to seek for Aid--Assistance granted
  by William the Good, of Sicily--Death of Urban, from Grief at
  the Loss of Jerusalem--Gregory VIII. promotes a Crusade--
  Expedition of Frederic, Emperor of Germany--His Successes--
  His Death--State of Europe--Crusade promoted by the
  Troubadours--Philip Augustus and Henry II. take the Cross--
  Laws enacted--Saladin's Tenth--War renewed--Death of Henry
  II.--Accession of Richard Coeur de Lion--The Crusade--
  Philip's March--Richard's March--Affairs of Sicily--Quarrels
  between the Monarchs--Philip goes to Acre--Richard subdues
  Cyprus--Arrives at Acre--Siege and Taking of Acre--Fresh
  Disputes--Philip Augustus returns to Europe--Richard marches
  on--Battle of Azotus--Heroism of Richard--Unsteady Councils--
  The Enterprise abandoned                                             237


  CHAPTER XIII.

  Death of Saladin--Disunion among his Successors--Celestine
  III. preaches a new Crusade--Henry of Germany takes the
  Cross--Abandons his Purpose--Crusaders proceed without him--
  Saif Eddin takes the Field, and captures Jaffa--The Crusaders
  are reinforced--Defeat Saif Eddin--Lay Siege to Thoron--
  Seized with Panic, and retreat--Disperse--Death of Henry of
  Champagne, King of Jerusalem--His Widow marries Almeric, King
  of Cyprus--Truce--Death of Almeric; and Isabella Mary,
  Heiress of Jerusalem, wedded to John of Brienne--Affairs of
  Europe--Innocent III. and Foulque, of Neuilly, promote a
  Crusade--The Barons of France take the Cross--Proceed to
  Venice--Their Difficulties--Turn to the Siege of Zara--A
  Change of Purpose--Proceed to Constantinople--Siege and
  Taking of that City--Subsequent Proceedings--A Revolution in
  Constantinople, Alexius deposed by Murzuphlis--Second Siege
  and Capture of the Greek Capital--Flight of Murzuphlis--
  Plunder and Outrage--Baldwin, Count of Flanders, elected
  Emperor                                                              264


  CHAPTER XIV.

  Divisions among the Moslems--Among the Christians--Crusade of
  Children--Innocent III. declares he will lead a new Crusade
  to Syria--The King of Hungary takes the Cross--Arrives in
  Syria--Successes of the Pilgrims--Abandon the Siege of Mount
  Thabor--The King of Hungary returns to Europe--The Duke of
  Austria continues the War--Siege of Damietta--Reinforcements
  arrive under a Legate--Famine in Damietta--The Moslems offer
  to yield Palestine--The Legate's Pride--He refuses--Taking of
  Damietta--The Army advances towards Cairo--Overflowing of the
  Nile--The Army ruined--The Legate sues for Peace--Generous
  Conduct of the Sultaun--Marriage of the Heiress of Jerusalem
  with Frederic, Emperor of Germany--His Disputes with the
  Pope--His Treaties with the Saracens--He recovers Jerusalem--
  He quits the Holy Land--Disputes in Palestine--The Templars
  defeated and slaughtered--Gregory IX.--Crusade of the King of
  Navarre ineffectual--Crusade of Richard, Earl of Cornwall--
  Jerusalem recovered--The Corasmins--Their Barbarity--They
  take Jerusalem--Defeat the Christians with terrible
  Slaughter--Are exterminated by the Syrians--Crusade of St.
  Louis--His Character--Arrives in the Holy Land--Takes
  Damietta--Battle of Massoura--Pestilence in the Army--The
  King taken--Ransomed--Returns to Europe--Second Crusade of
  St. Louis--Takes Carthage--His Death--Crusade of Prince
  Edward--He defeats the Saracens--Wounded by an Assassin--
  Returns to Europe--Successes of the Turks--Last Siege and
  Fall of Acre--Palestine lost                                         286


  CHAPTER XV.

  Fate of the Orders of the Temple and St. John--The Templars
  abandon all Hopes of recovering Jerusalem--Mingle in European
  Politics--Offend Philip the Fair--Are persecuted--Charges
  against them--The Order destroyed--The Knights of St. John
  pursue the Purpose of defending Christendom--Settle in
  Rhodes--Siege of Rhodes--Gallant Defence--The Island taken--
  The Knights remove to Malta--Siege of Malta--La Valette--
  Defence of St. Elmo--Gallantry of the Garrison--The whole
  Turkish Army attempt to storm the Castle--The Attack
  repelled--Arrival of Succour--The Siege raised--Conclusion           312

  NOTES                                                                331




HISTORY OF CHIVALRY AND THE CRUSADES




CHAPTER I.

_A Definition, with Remarks and Evidence--An Inquiry into the Origin of
Chivalry--Various Opinions on the Subject--Reasons for doubting the great
Antiquity of Chivalry properly so called--The State of Society which
preceded it, and of that which gave it Birth--Its Origin and early
Progress._


The first principles of whatever subject we may attempt to trace in
history are ever obscure, but few are so entirely buried in darkness as
the origin of Chivalry. This seems the more extraordinary, as we find the
institution itself suddenly accompanied by regular and established forms,
to which we can assign no precise date, and which appear to have been
generally acknowledged before they were reduced to any written code.

Although definitions are dangerous things--inasmuch as the ambiguity of
language rarely permits of perfect accuracy, except in matters of abstract
science--it is better, as far as possible, on all subjects of discussion,
to venture some clear and decided position, that the subsequent reasoning
may be fixed upon a distinct and unchanging basis.

If the position itself be wrong, it may be the more speedily proved so
from the very circumstance of standing forth singly, uninvolved in a
labyrinth of other matter; and if it be right, the arguments that follow
may always be more easily traced, and afford greater satisfaction by
being deduced from a principle already determined. These considerations
lead me to offer a definition of Chivalry, together with some remarks
calculated to guard that definition from the consequences of
misapprehension on the part of others, or of obscurity on my own.

When I speak of Chivalry I mean a military institution, prompted by
enthusiastic benevolence, sanctioned by religion, and combined with
religious ceremonies, the purpose of which was to protect the weak from
the oppression of the powerful, and to defend the right cause against the
wrong.

Its military character requires no proof; but various mistaken opinions,
which I shall notice hereafter, render it necessary to establish the fact,
that religious ceremonies of some kind were always combined with the
institutions of Chivalry.

All those written laws and regulations affecting knighthood,[1] which were
composed subsequent to its having taken an acknowledged form, prescribed,
in the strictest manner, various points of religious ceremonial, which the
aspirant to Chivalry was required to perform before he could be admitted
into that high order.

What preceded the regular recognition of Chivalry as an institution is
entirely traditional; yet in all the old romances, fabliaux, sirventes,
ballads, &c. not one instance is to be found in which a squire becomes a
knight, without some reference to his religious faith. If he be dubbed in
the battle-field, he swears to defend the right, and maintain all the
statutes of the noble order of Chivalry, upon the _cross_ of his sword; he
calls _heaven_ to witness his vow, and the _saints_ to help him in its
execution. Even in one of the most absurd fables[2] of the chivalrous
ages, wherein we find Saladin himself receiving the order of Chivalry
from the hands of the Count de Tabarie, that nobleman causes the infidel
sultan to be shaved, and to bathe as a symbol of baptism, and then to rest
himself upon a perfumed bed, as a type of the repose and joy of Paradise.
These tales are all fictitious, it is true; and few of them date earlier
than the end of the twelfth century: but at the same time, as they
universally ascribe religious ceremonies to the order of knighthood, we
have every reason to suppose that such ceremonies formed a fundamental
part of the institution.

Before proceeding to inquire into the origin of Chivalry, I must be
permitted to make one more observation in regard to my definition; namely,
that there was a great and individual character in that order, which no
definition can fully convey. I mean the Spirit of Chivalry; for, indeed,
it was more a spirit than an institution; and the outward forms with which
it soon became invested, were only, in truth, the signs by which it was
conventionally agreed that those persons who had proved in their initiate
they possessed the spirit, should be distinguished from the other classes
of society. The ceremonial was merely the public declaration, that he on
whom the order was conferred was worthy to exercise the powers with which
it invested him; but still, _the spirit was the Chivalry_.

In seeking the source of this order through the dark mazes of the history
of modern Europe, it appears to me that many writers have mistaken the
track; and, by looking for the mere external signs, have been led into
ages infinitely prior to the spirit of Chivalry.

Some have supposed that the institution descended to more modern times,
from the equestrian order of the ancient Romans; but the absence of all
but mere nominal resemblance between the two, has long placed this theory
in the dusty catalogue of historical dreams.

Others again have imagined that the Franks, and the rest of the German
nations, who, on the fall of the Roman empire, subdued and divided Gaul,
brought with them the seeds of Chivalry, which spontaneously grew up into
that extraordinary plant which has flourished but once in the annals of
the world. This opinion they support by citing the customs of the German
tribes[3] who, not only at particular periods invested their youth with
the shield and the javelin, but also (especially towards the period of the
conquest of Gaul) chose from the bravest of the tribe a number of
warriors, to be the companions and guards of the chief. These were termed
_Leudes_, and we find them often mentioned under the whole of the first
race of French kings. They served on horseback, while the greater part of
each German nation fought on foot only; and they were bound to the chief
by an oath of fidelity.[4] The reception of an aspirant into the body of
_Leudes_ was also marked with various ceremonies; but in this, if we
examine correctly, we find neither the spirit nor the forms of Chivalry.
The oath of the Frank was one of service to his prince; that of the
knight, to his God and to society: the one promised to defend his leader;
the other to protect the oppressed, and to uphold the right. The _Leudes_
were in fact the nobility of the German tribes, though that nobility was
not hereditary; but they were in no respect similar to the knights of an
after-age, except in the circumstance of fighting on horseback.

A third opinion supposes the origin of Chivalry to be found among the
ancient warlike tribes of Northmen, or Normans, who, towards the ninth
century, invaded in large bodies the southern parts of Europe, and
established themselves principally in France; and certainly, both in their
traditions, and even in their actions, as recorded by Abbon, an
eyewitness to their deeds in the siege of Paris, there is to be found an
energetic and romantic spirit, not unlike that which animated Chivalry at
the rudest period of its existence. Still, there is much wanting. The
great object of Chivalry, the defence of the weak, was absent, as well as
every form and ceremony. The object of the Northman's courage was plunder;
and all that he had in common with the knight was valour, contempt of
death, and a touch of savage generosity, that threw but a feint light over
his dark and stormy barbarities.

Many persons again have attributed the foundation of all the chivalrous
institutions of Europe to the bright and magnificent reign of Charlemagne;
and as this opinion has met with much support, among even the learned, it
is worth while more particularly to inquire upon what basis it is raised.
Of the reign of Charlemagne we have not so many authentic accounts as we
have romances, founded upon the fame of that illustrious monarch. Towards
the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, when Chivalry was in its
imaginative youth, a thousand tales of wild adventure were produced, in
which Charlemagne and his warriors were represented with all the qualities
and attributes of those knights, whose virtues and courage had by that
time wrought deeply on the heart and fancy of the people. We should be as
much justified, however, in believing that Virgil was a celebrated
necromancer, or that Hercules was a _Preux Chevalier_--characters which
have been assigned to them by the very same class of fables--as in giving
any credit to the distorted representations that those romances afford of
the days of Charlemagne.

In regard to the tales of King Arthur, I am perfectly inclined to use the
energetic words of Menestrier, who, in speaking of the famous knights of
the round table, says, without hesitation, "All that they tell of King
Arthur and that fictitious Chivalry of which they represent him as the
author, is nothing but a lie;"[5] for, though beyond all doubt the
romances of Chivalry afford a great insight into the manners of the times
wherein they were written, they are, nevertheless, quite worthless as
authority concerning the ages which they pretend to display, and which had
preceded their composition by nearly three centuries.

After rejecting the evidences of such tales, we find nothing in the
authentic records of Charlemagne which gives the slightest reason to
suppose that Chivalry was known, even in its most infant state, during his
reign. Though his great system of warfare had that in common with Chivalry
which all warfare must have--feats of daring courage, heroic valour,
bursts of feeling and magnanimity, and as much of the sublime as mighty
ambition, guided by mighty genius, and elevated by a noble object can
achieve--yet the government of Charlemagne was, in fact, any thing but a
chivalrous government. Too powerful a hand held the reins of state for
Chivalry either to have been necessary or permitted; and in reading the
annals of Eginhard, his life of Charlemagne, or the account, given by the
monk of St. Gall, we find a completely different character from that which
is visible in every page of the history of the knightly ages. We find,
indeed, that Charlemagne, according to the immemorial custom of his
German[6] ancestors, solemnly invested his son Lewis with the arms of a
man. A thousand years before, in the forests of the North, his
predecessors had done the same: and Charlemagne, one of whose great
objects ever was, to preserve both the habits and the language of the
original country[7] free from amalgamation with those of the conquered
nations, not only set the example of publicly receiving his son into the
ranks of manhood and warfare, but strictly enjoined that the same should
be done by his various governors in the provinces. But this custom of the
Franks, as I have before attempted to show, had no earthly relation to
knighthood. Were nothing else a proof that Chivalry was perfectly unknown
in the days of Charlemagne, it would be sufficient that the famous
capitularies of that monarch, which regulate every thing that can fall
under the eye of the law, even to the details of private life, make no
mention whatever of an institution which afterward exercised so great an
influence on the fate of Europe. Nor can we trace in the annals of the
surrounding countries, a mark of Chivalry having been known at that period
to any other nation more than to the Franks. Alfred, it is true, invested
Athelstan with a purple garment and a sword; but the Saxons were from
Germany as well as the Franks, and no reason exists for supposing that
this ceremony was in any degree connected with the institutions of
Chivalry. There have been persons, indeed, who supposed that Pharaoh
conferred knighthood upon Joseph, when he bestowed upon him the ring and
the golden chain, and probably the Egyptian king had fully as much
knowledge of the institution of Chivalry as either Charlemagne or Alfred.

Of the annals that follow the period of Charlemagne, those of Nithard,
Hincmar, and Thegan, together with those called the Annals of St. Bertinus
and of Metz, are the most worthy of credit; and in these, though we often
meet with the word _miles_, which was afterward the name bestowed upon a
knight, it is used simply in the signification of a soldier, or one of the
military race.[8] No mention whatever is made of any thing that can fairly
be looked upon as chivalrous, either in feeling or institution. All is a
series of dark conflicts and bloodthirsty contentions, among which the
sprouts of the feudal system, yet young and unformed, are seen springing
up from seeds sown long before. In the picture of those times, a double
darkness seemed to cover the earth, which, a chaos of unruly passions,
showed no one general institution for the benefit of mankind except the
Christian religion: and that, overwhelmed by foul superstitions and
guarded chiefly by barbarous, ignorant, selfish, and disorderly priests,
lay like a treasure hidden by a miser, and watched by men that had not
soul to use it. This was no age of knighthood.

Up to this period, then, I fully believe that Chivalry did not exist; and
having attempted to show upon some better ground than mere assertion, that
the theories which assign to it an earlier origin are wrong, I will now
give my own view of its rise, which possibly may be as erroneous as the
rest.

Charlemagne expired like a meteor that, having broken suddenly upon the
night of ages, and blazed brilliantly over a whole world for a brief
space, fell and left all in darkness, even deeper than before. His
dominions divided into petty kingdoms--his successors waging long and
inveterate wars against each other--the nations he had subdued shaking off
the yoke--the enemies he had conquered avenging themselves upon his
descendants--the laws he had established forgotten or annulled--the union
he had cemented scattered to the wind--in a lamentably brief space of
time, the bright order which his great mind had established throughout
Europe was dissolved. Each individual, who, either by corporeal strength,
advantageous position, wealth, or habit, could influence the minds of
others, snatched at that portion of the divided empire which lay nearest
to his means, and claimed that power as a gift which had only been
intrusted as a loan. The custom of holding lands by military service had
come down to the French from their German ancestors, and the dukes, the
marquises, the counts, as well as a whole herd of inferior officers, who
in former days had led the armies, or commanded in the provinces as
servants of the crown, now arrogated to themselves hereditary rights in
the charges to which they had been intrusted; and, in their own behalf,
claimed the feudal service of those soldiers to whom lands had been
granted, instead of preserving their allegiance for their sovereigns. The
weak monarchs, who still retained the name of kings, engaged in ruinous
wars with each other and in vain attempts to repel the invasions of the
Northmen or Normans, first tolerated these encroachments, because they had
at the time no power of resisting, and then gradually recognised them as
rights, upon the condition that those who committed them should assist the
sovereign in his wars, and acknowledge his title in preference to that of
any of his competitors.

Thus gradually rose the feudal system from the wrecks of Charlemagne's
great empire. But still all was unstable and unconfirmed; the limits of
the different powers in the state undecided and variable, till the war of
Paris, the incompetence of the successors of Charlemagne, and the
elevation of Hugues Capet, the Count of Paris, to the throne, showed the
barons the power they had acquired, and crowned the feudal compact by the
creation of a king whose title was found in it alone.

Great confusion, however, existed still. The authority of the sovereign
extended but a few leagues round the city of Paris; the Normans ravaged
the coast; the powerful and the wicked had no restraint imposed upon their
actions, and the weak were every where oppressed and wronged. Bands of
plunderers raged through the whole of France and Germany, property was
held by the sword, cruelty and injustice reigned alone, and the whole
history of that age offers a complete medley of massacre, bloodshed,
torture, crime, and misery.

Personal courage, however, had been raised to the highest pitch by the
very absence of every thing like security. Valour was a necessity and a
habit, and Eudes and his companions, who defended Paris against the
Normans, would have come down as demigods to the present day, if they had
but possessed a Homer to sing their deeds. The very Normans themselves,
with their wild enthusiasm and supernatural daring, their poetical
traditions, and magnificent superstitions, seemed to bring a new and
extraordinary light into the very lands they desolated. The plains teemed
with murder, and the rivers flowed with blood; but the world was weary of
barbarity, and a reacting spirit of order was born from the very bosom of
confusion.

It was then that some poor nobles, probably suffering themselves from the
oppression of more powerful lords, but at the same time touched with
sincere compassion for the wretchedness they saw around them, first
leagued together with the holy purpose of redressing wrongs and defending
the weak.[9] They gave their hands to one another in pledge that they
would not turn back from the work, and called upon St. George to bless
their righteous cause. The church readily yielded its sanction to an
institution so noble, aided it with prayers, and sanctified it with a
solemn blessing. Religious enthusiasm became added to noble indignation
and charitable zeal; and the spirit of Chivalry, like the flame struck
forth from the hard steel and the dull flint, was kindled into sudden
light by the savage cruelty of the nobles, and the heavy barbarity of the
people.

The spirit spread rapidly, and the adoration of the populace, who almost
deified their heroic defenders, gave both fresh vigour and purity to the
design. Every moral virtue became a part of knightly honour, and the men
whose hands were ever ready to draw the sword in defence of
innocence--who in their own conduct set the most brilliant example--whose
sole object was the establishment of right, and over whom no earthly fear
or interested consideration held sway, were readily recognised as judges,
and appealed to as arbitrators. Public opinion raised them above all other
men, even above kings themselves; so much so, indeed, that we find
continually repeated, in the writings of the chivalrous ages, such
passages as the following:--

  Chevaliers sont de moult grant pris,
  Ils ont de tous gens le pris,
  Et le los et le seignorie.

Thus gradually Chivalry became no longer a simple engagement between a few
generous and valiant men, but took the form of a great and powerful
institution; and as each knight had the right of creating others without
limit, it became necessary that the new class thus established in society
should be distinguished by particular signs and symbols, which would guard
it against the intrusion of unworthy or disgraceful members.

The time at which fixed regulations first distinguished Chivalry from
every other order in the state cannot be precisely determined; certainly
it was not before the eleventh century. Then, however, it is probable,
that this was done more from a general sense of its necessity, and by slow
and irregular degrees, than by any one law or agreement. Every thing in
that age was confusion, and though the spirit of Chivalry had for its
great object the restoration of order, it is not likely that its own
primary efforts should be very regular, amid a chaos of contending
interests and unbridled passions, which rendered general communication or
association difficult, if not impossible. Each knight, in admitting
another to the noble order of which he himself was a member, probably
added some little formality, as he thought fit, till the mass of these
customs collected by tradition formed the body of their ceremonial law.

The first point required of the aspirants to Chivalry, in its earliest
state, was certainly a solemn vow, "_To speak the truth, to succour the
helpless and oppressed, and never to turn back from an enemy_."[10]

This vow, combined with the solemn appeal to Heaven in witness thereof,
was the foundation of Chivalry; but, at the same time, we find, that in
all ages, only one class of people was eligible to furnish members to the
institution; namely, the military class, or, in other words, the northern
conquerors of the soil; for, with very few exceptions, the original
inhabitants of Europe had been reduced to the condition of serfs, or
slaves of the glebe. Some few, indeed, had held out till they forced the
invaders to permit their being incorporated with themselves upon more
equal terms; but this was very rare, and the _race rustique_, as it was
called, though it furnished archers to the armies, was kept distinct from
the military race by many a galling difference. This lower race, then,
could not be invested with the honours of Chivalry; and one of the first
provisions we find in any written form, respecting the institution of
knighthood, is designed to mark this more particularly. _Ad militarem
honorem nullus accedat qui non sit de genere militum_, says a decree of
the twelfth century. We may therefore conclude that this was the first
requisite, and the vow the first formality of Chivalry.

It is more than probable that the ceremony next in historical order,
attached to the admission of an aspirant into the ranks of knighthood, was
that of publicly arming him with the weapons he was to use, in pursuance
of his vow. This is likely, from many circumstances. In the first place,
to arm him for the cause was naturally the next preceding to his vowing
himself to that cause, and also by his receiving those arms in the face of
the public, the new defender that the people had gained became known to
the people, and thus no one would falsely pretend to the character of a
knight without risking detection. In the second place, as I have before
said, the arming of the German youth had been from the earliest ages, like
the delivery of the virile robe to young Romans, an occasion of public
solemnity; and it was therefore natural that it should be soon
incorporated with the ceremonial of the new military institution which now
took the lead of all others.

The church of course added her part to secure reverence for an order which
was so well calculated to promote all the objects of religion, and vigils,
fasts, and prayers speedily became a part of the initiation to knighthood.
Power is ever followed by splendour and display; but to use the energetic
words of a learned and talented writer of the present day,[11] the knights
for long after the first institution of Chivalry, were "simple in their
clothing, austere in their morals, humble after victory, firm under
misfortune."

In France, I believe, the order first took its rise; and, probably, the
disgust felt by some pure minds at the gross and barbarous licentiousness
of the times, infused that virtuous severity into the institutions of
Chivalry which was in itself a glory. If we may give the least credit to
the picture of the immorality and luxury of the French, as drawn by Abbon
in his poem on the siege of Paris, no words will be found sufficient to
express our admiration for the men who first undertook to combat not only
the tyranny but the vices of their age; who singly went forth to war
against crime, injustice, and cruelty who defied the whole world in
defence of innocence, virtue, and truth; who stemmed the torrent of
barbarity and evil; and who, from the wrecks of ages, and the ruins of
empires, drew out a thousand jewels to glitter in the star that shone upon
the breast of knighthood.

For long the Christian religion had struggled alone, a great but shaded
light through the storms of dark and barbarous ages. Till Chivalry arose
there was nothing to uphold it; but from that moment, with a champion in
the field to lead forth the knowledge that had been imprisoned in the
cloister, the influence of religion began to spread and increase. Though
worldly men thereunto attached the aggrandizement of their own temporal
power, and knaves and villains made it the means of their avarice, or the
cloak of their vice, still the influence of the divine truth itself
gradually wrought upon the hearts of men, purifying, calming, refining,
till the world grew wise enough to separate the perfection of the Gospel
from the weakness of its teachers, and to reject the _errors_ while they
restrained the _power_ of the Roman church.

In the mean time Chivalry stood forth the most glorious institution that
man himself ever devised. In its youth and in its simplicity, it appeared
grand and beautiful, both from its own intrinsic excellence, and from its
contrast with the things around. In its after-years it acquired pomp and
luxury; and to pomp and luxury naturally succeeded decay and death; but
still the legacy that it left behind it to posterity was a treasure of
noble feelings and generous principles.

There cannot be a doubt that Chivalry, more than any other institution
(except religion) aided to work out the civilization of Europe. It first
taught devotion and reverence to those weak, fair beings, who but in their
beauty and their gentleness have no defence. It first raised love above
the passions of the brute, and by dignifying woman, made woman worthy of
love. It gave purity to enthusiasm, crushed barbarous selfishness, taught
the heart to expand like a flower to the sunshine, beautified glory with
generosity, and smoothed even the rugged brow of war.

For the mind, as far as knowledge went, Chivalry itself did little; but by
its influence it did much. For the heart it did every thing; and there is
scarcely a noble feeling or a bright aspiration that we find among
ourselves, or trace in the history of modern Europe, that is not in some
degree referable to that great and noble principle, which has no name but
the _Spirit of Chivalry_.




CHAPTER II.

_Of Chivalrous Customs--Education--Grades--Services on the Reception of a
Knight--On Tournaments--Jousts--Combats at Outrance--Passages of Arms--The
Round Table--Privileges of Knighthood--Duties of Knighthood._


Although the customs which I am about to detail at once grew gradually up
under the various circumstances of different centuries, and were for the
most part unknown to the infancy of Chivalry, I think it right to notice
here the principal peculiarities of the institution, rather than to
interrupt the course of my narrative afterward, when the history of
knighthood may be traced continuously down to its final extinction.

We have already seen that each individual member of the order possessed
the power of admitting any other person to its honours without restraint;
but it did not by any means follow that all previous trial and education
was dispensed with. Very soon after the first institution of Chivalry
every one became covetous of the distinction, and it naturally followed
that the object of each boy's aspirations, the aim of every young man's
ambition, was one day to be a knight. Those, however, who had already
received the order, were scrupulously careful to admit none within its
fellowship who might disgrace the sword that dubbed them; and knighthood
gradually became as much the reward of a long and tedious education, as
the bonnet of the doctor or the stole of the clerk.

The feudal system had now reached its acme; and each individual lord,
within his own domain, assumed the state and importance of a prince. With
the vain spirit of ostentatious imitation which unhappily is common to all
climes and all centuries, the great feudatories of the crown copied the
household of the sovereign, and the petty barons imitated them. Each had
his crowd of officers, and squires, and pages, and varlets. Even the
monasteries and the abbeys affected the same pomp and ceremonial, so that
we find the abbot of St. Denis riding[12] forth accompanied by his
chamberlain and marshal, whose offices were held as feoffs.

The manor or the castle of each feudal chieftain, however, soon became the
school of Chivalry, and any noble youth whose parents were either dead or
too poor to educate him to the art of war was willingly received in the
dwelling of a neighbouring baron, who took care that his pupil should be
instructed in all military exercises, glad to attach to his own person as
large a body of armed retainers as his circumstances would permit.

Till they reached the age of seven years the youths, afterward destined to
arms, were left to the care of the females of the household, who taught
them the first principles of religion and of Chivalry. They were then in
general sent from home, those fathers even, who possessed the means of
conducting their education themselves, preferring to intrust it to some
other noble knight who could be biassed[13] by no parental tenderness to
spare the young aspirant to Chivalry any of those trials and hardships
absolutely necessary to prepare him for his after-career.

On entering the household of another knight, the first place filled by the
youths, then fresh from all the soft kindnesses of home, was that of page
or varlet, which, though it implied every sort of attendance on the person
of their new lord, was held as honourable, not degrading.

Here they still remained[14] much among the women of the family, who
undertook to complete their knowledge of their duty to God and their lady,
instilling into their infant minds that refined and mystic idea of love,
which was so peculiar a trait in the Chivalry of old. In the mean while
the rest of their days were passed in the service of their lord,
accompanying him in his excursions, serving him at table, pouring out his
drink; all of which offices being shared in by the children and young
relations of the baron himself,[15] were reckoned, as I have said, highly
honourable, and formed the first step in the ascent to Chivalry.

At the same time infinite pains were bestowed upon the education of these
pages. They were taught all sorts of gymnastic exercises which could
strengthen the body; and, by continually mingling with the guests of the
castle, receiving them on their arrival, offering them every sort of
service, and listening respectfully to the conversation of their elders,
they acquired that peculiar grace of manner which, under the name of
courtesy, formed a principal perfection in the character of the true
knight.

At fourteen the page was usually admitted to the higher grade of squire,
and exchanged his short dagger for the manly sword. This, however, was
made a religious ceremony; and the weapon which he was in future to wear
was laid upon the altar, from whence it was taken by the priest,[16] and
after several benedictions, was hung over the shoulder of the new squire,
with many a sage caution and instruction as to its use.

His exercises now became more robust than they had ever been before; and,
if we are to believe the old biographer of the celebrated Boucicaut, they
were far more fatiguing than any man of the present age could endure. To
spring upon horseback armed at all pieces, without putting a foot in the
stirrup; to cast somersets in heavy armour[17] for the purpose of
strengthening the arms; to leap upon the shoulders of a horseman from
behind, without other hold than one hand laid upon his shoulder--such, and
many others, were the daily exercises of the young noble, besides regular
instruction in riding and managing his arms. Though it would seem at first
that few constitutions could undergo for any length of time such violent
exertions, we must remember the effects produced--we must call to mind
that these very men in their after-life, are found bearing a weight, that
few persons of the present times could lift, through the heat of a whole
summer's day, under the burning sun of Palestine. We must remember the
mighty feats of strength that these men performed; and, when we see a
Boemond fighting from noon to sunset cased from head to foot in thick
iron, or in long after-days a Guise swimming against a torrent armed
cap-a-pie, we must naturally conclude that no ordinary course of training
could produce such vigour and hardihood.

Several degrees of squires or esquires are mentioned in the ancient
chronicles; and it is difficult to distinguish which class included the
young noble--which was filled by an inferior race. That there was a
distinction is evident; for in the life of Bayard[18] we find an old
squire mentioned more than once, from whom he received instructions, but
who never appears to have aspired to any higher degree. Nevertheless it is
equally certain that many services which we should consider menial, were
performed by the squires of the highest race about the persons of their
lords. Nor was this confined to what might be considered military
services; for we learn that they not only held the stirrup for their lord
to mount, and then followed, carrying his helm, his lance, his shield, or
his gauntlets; but they continued to serve him at table, to clean his
armour, to dress his horses, and to fulfil a thousand other avocations, in
which they were aided, it is true, by the _gros varlets_ or common
servants, but which they still had their share in accomplishing with their
own hands.[19] The highest class of esquires, however, was evidently the
_écuyer d'honneur_, who, from the manner of Froissart's mention of many at
the court of the Count de Foix, appears to have had in charge the
reception and entertainment of guests and strangers.

The squires of course had often more important duties to perform. It was
for them to follow their lords to the battle-field; and, while the
knights, formed in a long line, fought hand to hand against their equals,
the squires remained watching eagerly the conflict, and ready to drag
their master from the _mêlée_, to cover him if he fell, to supply him with
fresh arms, and, in short, to lend him every aid; without, however,
presuming to take an active part against the adverse knights, with whose
class it was forbidden for a squire to engage.

St. Palaye limits to these defensive operations the services of the
squires in the field of battle,[20] and it is possible that the strict
laws of Chivalry might justify such a restriction. Nevertheless there can
be no earthly doubt that they were often much more actively engaged, even
in the purest days of Chivalry. In all the wars between Richard Coeur de
Lion and Philip Augustus,[21] we find them often fighting bravely; and at
the battle of Bovine, a squire had nearly taken the life of the famous
Count de Boulogne.

These services in the field perfected the aspirant to Chivalry in the
knowledge of his profession; and the trials of skill which, on the day
that preceded a tournament, were permitted to squires, in the lists, gave
him an opportunity of distinguishing himself in the eyes of the people,
and of gaining a name among the heralds and chroniclers of knightly deeds.

If a noble squire had conducted himself well during the period of his
service, it seldom occurred that his lord refused to bestow upon him the
honour of knighthood at the age of twenty-one; and sometimes, if he had
been distinguished by any great or gallant feat, or by uniform talent and
courage,[22] he was admitted into the order before he had reached that
age. This, nevertheless, was rare, except in the case of sovereign
princes; and, on the contrary, it occasionally happened that a knight who
did not choose to part so soon with a favourite squire would delay on
various pretences a ceremony which almost always caused some separation
between the young knight and his ancient master.[23]

The squire, however, had always the right to claim the knighthood from the
hand of another, if his lord unjustly refused to bestow it; and that high
sense of honour which was their great characteristic prevented the knights
thus applied to from ever refusing, when the aspirant was fully justified
in his claim.

The times chosen for conferring knighthood were generally either those of
great military ceremony,[24] as after tournaments, _cours plénières_, the
muster or _monstre_, as it was called, of the army, or on days
consecrated by the church to some peculiar solemnity, as Easter-day, the
day of Pentecost, or even Christmas-day.[25]

This was, nevertheless, by no means imperative; for we have already seen
that knighthood was often conferred on any particular emergency, and even
on the field of battle.[26] On these occasions the forms were of course
abridged to suit the necessity of the case, but the knighthood was not the
less valid or esteemed.

The more public and solemn the ceremony could be made, the more it
appeared to the taste of the nobles of the middle ages. Nor was the pomp
and display without its use, raising and dignifying the order in the eyes
of the people, and impressing deeply upon the mind of the young knight the
duties which he had voluntarily taken upon himself. We all know how much
remembrance depends upon external circumstance, and it is ever well to
give our feelings some fixed resting-place in the waste of life, that in
after-years memory may lead us back and refresh the resolutions and bright
designs of youth by the aid of the striking scenes and solemn moments in
which those designs and resolutions were first called into activity.
Nothing could be better calculated to make a profound impression on the
mind than the ceremonies of a knight's reception in the mature times of
Chivalry.

On the day appointed,[27] all the knights and nobles at that time in the
city where the solemnity was to be performed, with the bishops and clergy,
each covered with the appropriate vestments of his order, the knight in
his coat-of-arms, and the bishop in his stole, conducted the aspirant to
the principal church of the place. There, after the high mass had been
chanted, the novice approached the altar and presented the sword to the
bishop or priest, who, taking it from his hand, blessed and consecrated it
to the service of religion and virtue.

It often happened that the bishop himself then solemnly warned the youth
of the difficulties and requisites of the order to which he aspired. "He
who seeks to be a knight,"--said the Bishop of Valenciennes to the young
Count of Ostrevant on one of these occasions,[28] "he who wishes to be a
knight should have great qualities. He must be of noble birth, liberal in
gifts, high in courage, strong in danger, secret in council, patient in
difficulties, powerful against enemies, prudent in his deeds. He must also
swear to observe the following rules: To undertake nothing without having
heard mass fasting; to spare neither his blood nor his life in defence of
the Catholic faith; to give aid to all widows and orphans; to undertake no
war without just cause; to favour no injustice, but to protect the
innocent and oppressed; to be humble in all things; to seek the welfare of
those placed under him; never to violate the rights of his sovereign, and
to live irreprehensibly before God and man."

The bishop, then taking his joined hands in his own, placed them on the
missal, and received his oath to follow the statutes laid down to him,
after which his father advancing dubbed him a knight.

At other times it occurred, that when the sword had been blessed, the
novice[29] carried it to the knight who was to be his godfather in
Chivalry, and kneeling before him plighted his vow to him. After this the
other knights, and often the ladies present, advanced, and completely
armed the youth, sometimes beginning with one piece of the armour,
sometimes another. St. Palaye declares that the spurs were always buckled
on before the rest, but in the history of Geoffrey, Duke of Normandy, we
find the corslet and the greaves mentioned first, and the spear and sword
last.

After having been armed, the novice still remained upon his knees before
his godfather in arms, who then, rising from his seat, bestowed upon him
the _accolade_, as it was called, which consisted generally of three blows
of the naked sword upon the neck or shoulder. Sometimes it was performed
by a blow given with the palm of the hand upon the cheek of the novice,
which was always accompanied by some words, signifying that the ceremony
was complete, and the squire had now become a knight.

The words which accompanied the accolade were generally, when the kings of
France bestowed the honour, "In the name of God, St. Michael, and St.
George, I make thee knight; be loyal, bold, and true."

Sometimes to the blow were joined the words,[30] "Bear this blow and never
bear another," and sometimes was added the more Christian admonition to
humility, "Remember that the Saviour of the world was buffeted and
scoffed."[31]

Whatever was its origin the custom was a curious one, and bore a strong
resemblance to the ceremony of manumission among the Romans, who, on
freeing a slave, struck him a slight blow, which Claudian happily enough
terms _felicem injuriam_. I do not, however, intend to insinuate that the
one custom was derived from the other, though, perhaps, the fact of a serf
becoming free if his lord struck him with any instrument,[32] except such
as were employed in his actual labour, may have been, in some degree, a
vestige of the Roman law in this respect, which we know descended entire
to many of the barbarous nations.

However that may be, after having submitted to the blow which ended his
servitude as a squire, the new knight was decorated with his casque, which
had hitherto been held beside him, and then proceeding to the door of the
church, or of the castle, where his knighthood had been bestowed, he
sprang upon his horse and showed himself armed in the principal places of
the city, while the heralds proclaimed his name and vaunted his
prowess.[33]

As long vigils, fast, prayers, and confessions had preceded and
accompanied the admission of the new knight, festivals, banquets, and
tournaments followed.[34] The banquets and the festivals, as common to all
ages, though differing in each, I will pass over: suffice it, that one of
the strictest laws of Chivalry forbade gluttony and intemperance.

The tournament, as a purely chivalrous institution, I must mention; though
so much has been already written on the subject, that I could have wished
to pass it over in silence. The most complete description ever given of a
tournament is to be found in the writings of one whose words are pictures;
and if I dared but copy into this place the account of the passage of arms
in Ivanhoe, I should be enabled to give a far better idea of what such a
scene really was, than all the antiquarian researches in my power will
afford.

All military nations, from the earliest antiquity, have known and
practised various athletic games in imitation of warfare; and we of course
find among the Franks various exercises of the kind from the very first
records which we have of that people. Nithard,[35] however, gives an
elaborate picture of these mock-fights as practised in the reigns
succeeding Charlemagne; and we find but little resemblance to the
tournament. Four equal bands of Saxons, Gascons, Austrasians, and
Armoricans (or Britons,[36] as they are there called) met together in an
open place, and, while the populace stood round as spectators, pursued
each other, in turn, brandishing their arms, and seeming fiercely to seek
the destruction of their adversaries. When this had proceeded for some
time, Louis and Charles (the two monarchs in whose history the description
is given) suddenly rushed into the field with all their choice companions,
and, with quivering lances and loud cries, followed, now one, now another,
of the parties, who took care to fly before their horses.

The first authentic mention of a tournament[37] is to be found in the
Chronicle of Tours, which records the death of Geoffrey de Priuli in 1066;
adding the words _qui torneamenta invenit_--who invented tournaments. From
the appearance[38] of these exercises in Germany[39] about the same time,
we may conclude that this date is pretty nearly correct; and that if
tournaments were not absolutely invented at that precise period, they were
then first regulated by distinct laws.

In England[40] they did not appear till several years later, when the
Norman manners introduced after the conquest had completely superseded the
customs of the Saxons.

Thus much has seemed necessary to me to say concerning the origin of
tournaments, as there are so many common fables on the subject which give
far greater antiquity to the exercise than that which it is entitled to
claim.

The ceremonies and the splendour of the tournament of course differed in
different ages and different countries; but the general principle was the
same. It was a chivalrous game, originally instituted for practising those
exercises, and acquiring that skill which was likely to be useful in
knightly warfare.

A tournament was usually given upon the occasion of any great meeting, for
either military or political purposes. Sometimes it was the king himself
who sent his heralds through the land to announce to all noblemen and
ladies, that on a certain day he would hold a grand tournament, where all
brave knights might try their prowess. At other times a tournament was
determined on by a body of independent knights; and messengers were often
sent into distant countries to invite all gallant gentlemen to honour the
passage of arms.

The spot fixed upon for the lists was usually in the immediate
neighbourhood of some abbey or castle, where the shields of the
various[41] cavaliers who purposed combating were exposed to view for
several days previous to the meeting. A herald was also placed beneath the
cloisters to answer all questions concerning the champions, and to receive
all complaints against any individual knight. If, upon investigation, the
kings of arms and judges of the field found that a just accusation was
laid against one[42] of the knights proposing to appear, a peremptory
command excluded him from the lists; and if he dared in despite thereof to
present himself, he was driven forth with blows and ignominy.

Round about the field appointed for the spectacle were raised galleries,
scaffoldings, tents,[43] and pavilions, decorated with all the
magnificence of a luxurious age. Banners and scutcheons, and bandrols,
silks and cloth of gold, covered the galleries and floated round the
field; while all that rich garments and precious stones, beauty and youth,
could do to outshine the inanimate part of the scene, was to be found
among the spectators. Here too was seen the venerable age of Chivalry--all
those old knights whose limbs were no longer competent to bear the weight
of arms, surrounding the field to view the prowess of their children and
judge the deeds of the day. Heralds and pursuivants, in the gay and
many-coloured garments which they peculiarly affected, fluttered over the
field, and bands of warlike music were stationed near to animate the
contest and to salute the victors.

The knights, as they appeared in the lists, were greeted by the heralds
and the people[44] according to their renown; but the approbation of the
female part of the spectators was the great stimulus to all the Chivalry
of the field. Each knight, as a part of his duty, either felt or feigned
himself in love; and it was upon these occasions that his lady might
descend from the high state to which the mystic adoration of the day had
raised her, and bestow upon her favoured champion a glove, a riband, a
bracelet,[45] a jewel, which, borne on his crest through the
hard-contested field, was the chief object of his care, and the great
excitement to his valour.

Often, too, in the midst of the combat, if accident or misfortune deprived
the favoured knight of the gage of his lady's affection, her admiration or
her pity won her to supply another token, sent by a page or squire, to
raise again her lover's resolution, and animate him to new exertions.

The old romance of Perce-forest gives a curious picture of the effects
visible after a tournament, by the eagerness with which the fair
spectators had encouraged the knights. "At the close of the tournament,"
says the writer, "the ladies were so stripped of their ornaments, that the
greater part of them were bareheaded. Thus they went their ways with their
hair floating on their shoulders more glossy than fine gold; and with
their robes without the sleeves, for they had given to the knights to
decorate themselves, wimples and hoods, mantles and shifts, sleeves and
bodies. When they found themselves undressed to such a pitch, they were at
first quite ashamed; but as soon as they saw every one was in the same
state, they began to laugh at the whole adventure, for they had all
bestowed their jewels and their clothes upon the knights with so good a
will, that they had not perceived that they uncovered themselves."

This is probably an exaggerated account of the enthusiasm which the events
of a tournament excited in the bosom of the fair ladies of that day: but
still, no doubt can be entertained, that they not only decorated their
knights before the tournament with some token of their approbation, but in
the case of its loss, often sent him even a part of their dress in the
midst of the conflict.

The other spectators, also, though animated by less thrilling interests,
took no small share in the feelings and hopes of the different parties.
Each blow of the lance or sword, struck well and home, was greeted with
loud acclamations; and valour met with both its incitement and its reward,
in the expecting silence and the thundering plaudits with which each good
champion's movements were waited for and seen.

In the mean while, without giving encouragement to any particular knight,
the heralds strove to animate all by various quaint and characteristic
exclamations, such as "The love of ladies!" "Death to the horses!" "Honour
to the brave!" "Glory to be won by blood and sweat!" "Praise to the sons
of the brave!"

It would occupy too much space to enter into all the details of the
tournament, or to notice all the laws by which it was governed. Every care
was taken that the various knights should meet upon equal terms; and many
a precaution was made use of to prevent accidents, and to render the
sports both innocent and useful. But no regulations could be found
sufficient to guard against the dangerous consequences of such furious
amusements; and Ducange gives a long list of princes and nobles who lost
their lives in these fatal exercises. The church often interfered, though
in vain, to put them down; and many monarchs forbade them in their
dominions; but the pomp with which they were accompanied, and the
excitement they afforded to a people fond of every mental stimulus,
rendered them far more permanent than might have been expected.

The weapons in tournaments were, in almost all cases, restrained to
blunted swords and headless spears, daggers, and battle-axes; but, as may
well be imagined, these were not to be used without danger; so that even
those festivals that passed by without the absolute death of any of the
champions, left, nevertheless, many to drag out a maimed and miserable
existence, or to die after a long and weary sickness. And yet the very
peril of the sport gave to it an all-powerful interest, which we can best
conceive, at present, from our feelings at some deep and thrilling
tragedy.

After the excitement, and the expectation, and the suspense, and the
eagerness, came the triumph and the prize--and the chosen queen of the
field bestowed upon the champion whose feats were counted best, that
reward, the value of which consisted more in the honour than the thing
itself. Sometimes it was a jewel,[46] sometimes a coronet[47] of flowers
or of laurel; but in all cases the award implied a right to one kiss from
the lips of the lady appointed to bestow the prize. It seems to have been
as frequent a practice to assign this prize on the field, as in the
chateau[48] or palace whither the court retired after the sports were
concluded; and we often find that the female part of the spectators were
called to decide upon the merits of the several champions, and to declare
the victor[49] as well as confer the reward. Mirth and festivity ever
closed the day of the tournament, and song and sports brought in the
night.

Every thing that could interest or amuse a barbarous age was collected on
the spot where one of these meetings was held. The minstrel or
_menestrier_, the juggler, the saltimbank, the story-teller, were present
in the hall to soothe or to entertain; but still the foundation of tale
and song was Chivalry;--the objects of all praise were noble deeds and
heroic actions; and the very voice of love and tenderness, instead of
seducing to sloth and effeminacy, was heard prompting to activity, to
enterprise, and to honour--to the defence of virtue, and the search for
glory.

It may be here necessary to remark, that there were several sorts of
tournaments, which differed essentially from each other; but I shall not
pause upon these any longer than merely to point out the particular
differences between them. The joust, which was certainly a kind of
tournament, was always confined to two persons, though these persons
encountered each other with blunted arms.[50]

The combat at outrance was, in fact, a duel, and only differed from the
trial by battle in being voluntary, while the other was enforced by law.
This contest was often the event of private quarrels, but was, by no
means, always so; and, to use the language of Ducange, "though mortal, it
took place ordinarily between persons who most frequently did not know
each other, or, at least, had no particular misunderstanding, but who
sought alone to show forth their courage, generosity, and skill in arms."
Sometimes, however, the combat at outrance was undertaken by a number of
knights[51] together, and often much blood was thus shed, without cause.

The _pas d'armes_ or passage of arms, differed from general tournaments,
inasmuch as a certain number of knights fixed their shields and tents in a
particular pass, or spot of ground, which they declared their intention to
defend against all comers.[52] The space before their tents was generally
listed in, as for a tournament; and, during the time fixed for the defence
of the passage, the same concourse of spectators, heralds, and minstrels
were assembled.

The round table was another distinct sort of tournament,[53] held in a
circular amphitheatre, wherein the knights invited jousted against each
other. The origin of this festival, which was held, I believe, for the
last time by Edward III., is attributed to Roger Mortimer,[54] who, on
receiving knighthood, feasted a hundred knights and a hundred ladies at a
round table. The mornings were spent in chivalrous games, the prize of
which was a golden lion, and the evenings in banquets and festivities.
This course of entertainments continued three days with the most princely
splendour; after which Mortimer, having won the prize himself, conducted
his guests to Warwick, and dismissed them.

From this account, taken from the History of the Priory of Wigmore,
Menestrier deduces that those exercises called "round tables" were only
tournaments, during which the lord or sovereign giving the festival
entertained his guests at a table which, to prevent all ceremony in
respect to precedence, was in the form of a circle. Perhaps, however, this
institution may have had a different and an earlier origin, though I find
it mentioned in no author previous to the year 1279.[55]

Chivalry, which in its pristine purity knew no reward but honour, soon--as
it became combined with power--appropriated to itself various privileges
which, injuring its simplicity, in the end brought about its fall. In the
first place, the knight was, by the fact of his Chivalry, the judge of all
his equals, and consequently of all his inferiors.[56] He was also, in
most cases, the executor of his own decree, and it would indeed have
required a different nature from humanity to secure such a jurisdiction
from frequent perversion. The knight[57] also took precedence of all
persons who had not received Chivalry, a distinction well calculated to do
away with that humility which was one of knighthood's strictest laws.[58]
Added to this was the right of wearing particular dresses and colours,
gold and jewels, which were restrained to the knightly class, by very
severe ordinances. Scarlet and green were particularly reserved for the
order of knighthood, as well as ermine, minever, and some other furs.
Knights also possessed what was called privilege of clergy, that is to
say, in case of accusation, they could claim to be tried before the
ecclesiastical judge.[59] Their arms were legally forbidden to all other
classes, and the title of Sire, Monseigneur, Sir, Don, &c., were applied
to them alone, till the distinction was lost in the course of time.

Though these privileges changed continually, and it is scarcely possible
to say what age gave birth to any one of them, yet it is evident that
monarchs, after they had seen the immense influence which Chivalry might
have on their own power, and had striven to render it an engine for their
own purposes, took every care to secure all those rights and immunities to
the order which could in some degree balance the hardships, fatigues, and
dangers inevitably attendant upon it, and supply the place of that
enthusiasm which of course grew fainter as the circumstances which
excited it changed, and the objects which it sought were accomplished.

It is probable that there would always have been many men who would have
coveted Chivalry for the sole purpose of doing good and protecting the
innocent; but monarchs sought to increase the number of knights as a means
of defending their realms and extending their power, and, consequently,
they supplied other motives and external honours as an inducement to those
persons of a less exalted mind.

Chivalry was indeed a distinction not to be enjoyed without many and
severe labours. The first thing after receiving knighthood was generally a
long journey[60] into foreign countries, both for the purpose of jousting
with other knights, and for instruction in every sort of chivalrous
knowledge. There the young knight studied carefully the demeanour of every
celebrated champion he met, and strove to glean the excellencies of each.
Thus he learned courtesy and grace, and thus he heard all the famous
exploits of the day which, borne from court to court by these chivalrous
travellers, spread the fame of great deeds from one end of the world to
the other.[61]

It cannot be doubted that this practice of wandering armed through Europe
gave great scope to licentiousness in those who were naturally
ill-disposed; and many a cruelty and many a crime was assuredly committed
by that very order instituted to put down vice and to protect innocence.
To guard against this the laws of Chivalry were most severe;[62] and as
great power was intrusted to the knight, great was the shame and dishonour
if he abused it. The oath taken in the first place was as strictly opposed
to every vice, as any human promise could be, and the first principle of
chivalrous honour was never to violate an engagement. I must here still
repeat the remark, that it was the spirit which constituted the Chivalry,
and as that spirit waned, Chivalry died away.

One of the most curious institutions of Chivalry was that which required a
knight, on his return from any expedition,[63] to give a full and minute
account to the heralds, or officers of arms, of all his adventures during
his absence, without reserve or concealment; telling as well his reverses
and discomfitures, as his honours and success. To do this he was bound by
oath; and the detail thus given was registered by the herald, who by such
relations learned to know and estimate the worth and prowess of each
individual knight. It served also to excite other adventurers to great
deeds in imitation of those who acquired fame and honour; and it afforded
matter of consolation to the unfortunate, who in those registers must ever
have met with mishaps to equal or surpass their own.

The spirit of Chivalry, however, led to a thousand deeds and habits not
required nor regulated by any law. Were two armies opposed to each other,
or even encamped in the neighbourhood of each other, though at peace,[64]
the knights would continually issue forth singly from the ranks to
challenge any other champion to come out, and break a lance in honour of
his lady. Often before a castle, or on the eve of a battle, a knight would
vow to some holy saint never to quit the field, or abandon the siege, till
death or victory ended his design. Frequently, too, we find that in the
midst of some great festival, where all the Chivalry of the land was
assembled, a knight would suddenly appear, bearing in his hands[65] a
peacock, a heron, or some other bird. Presenting it in turn to each noble
in the assembly, he would then demand their oath upon that bird to do some
great feat of arms against the enemy. No knight dared to refuse, and the
vow so taken was irrevocable and never broken.

One of the most extraordinary customs of Chivalry, and also one of the
most interesting, was the adoption of a brother in arms.[66]

This custom[67] seems to have taken its rise in England, and was in common
use especially among the Saxons. After the Conquest, however, it rapidly
spread to other nations, and seems to have been a favourite practice with
the crusaders. Esteem and long companionship were the first principles of
this curious sort of alliance, which bound one knight to another by ties
more strict than those of blood itself.

It is true the brotherhood in arms was often contracted but for a time, or
under certain circumstances,[68] which once passed by, the engagement was
at an end; but far oftener it was a bond for life, uniting interests and
feelings, and dividing dangers and successes. The brothers in arms[69] met
all perils together, undertook all adventures in company, shared in the
advantage of every happy enterprise, and partook of the pain or loss of
every misfortune. If the one was attacked in body, in honour, or in
estate, the other sprang forward to defend him. Their wealth and even
their thoughts were in common; so that the news which the one received, or
the design that he formed, he was bound to communicate to the other
without reserve. Even if the one underlay a wager of battle[70] against
any other knight, and was cut off by death before he could discharge
himself thereof, his brother in arms was bound to appear in the lists, in
defence of his honour, on the day appointed.

Sometimes[71] this fraternity of arms was contracted by a solemn deed;
sometimes by a vow ratified by the communion and other ceremonies of the
church. In many cases,[72] however, the only form consisted in the mutual
exchange of arms, which implied the same devotion to each other, and the
same irrevocable engagement.

I have now said sufficient concerning the habits and customs of the
ancient knights, to give a general idea of the rules by which Chivalry was
governed, and the spirit by which it was animated. That spirit waxed
fainter, it is true, as luxury and pomp increased, and as the barbarities
of an early age merged into the softer licentiousness that followed.

But the rules of the order themselves remained unchanged, and did far more
than any other institution to restrain the general incontinence[73] of the
age. Even in those days when chivalrous love was no longer pure, and
chivalrous religion no longer the spring of the noblest morality, the
spirit of the days of old lingered amid the ruins of the falling
institution. An Edward, a Du Guesclin, a Bayard, a Sidney, would rise up
in the midst of corrupted times, and shame the vices of the day by still
showing one more true knight; and even now, when the order has altogether
passed away, we feel and benefit by its good effects.

So complete a change has come over manners and customs, so rapid has been
our late progress, and so many and vast have been the events of latter
years, that to trace the remains of Chivalry in any of our present
feelings or institutions, seems but a theoretical dream. The knights of
old are looked upon as things apart, that have neither kin nor community
with ourselves; their acts are hardly believed; and their very existence
is doubted. Let him who would make historical remembrance more tangible,
and see how nearly the days of Chivalry approach to our own, run his eye
over one short page in the chronology of the world, and he will find that
no more than three centuries have passed since Bayard himself died, a
knight without reproach.




CHAPTER III.

_The Progress of Chivalry in Europe--Exploits--That some great Enterprise
was necessary to give Chivalry an extensive and permanent Effect--That
Enterprise presented itself in the Crusades--Pilgrimage to Jerusalem--
Haroun Al Raschid--Charlemagne--Cruelties of the Turks--Pilgrimages
continued--Peter the Hermit--Council of Clermont._


The picture which I have just attempted to draw of the various customs of
Chivalry must be looked upon rather as a summary of its institutions and
feelings, as they changed through many ages and many nations, than as a
likeness of Chivalry at any precise period, or in any one country.

Previous to the age of the crusades, to which I now propose to turn as
speedily as possible, the state of Chivalry in Europe had made but little
progress. It had spread, however, as a spirit, to almost all the nations
surrounding the cradle of its birth. In Spain Alphonso VI.[74] was already
waging a completely chivalric war against the Moors, and many of the
knights of France, who afterward distinguished themselves in the Holy
Land, had, in the service of one or other of the Spanish princes, tried
their arms against the Saracens.

In England we have seen that there is reason to suppose the institution of
knighthood was known to the Saxons,[75] though the indiscriminate manner
in which the word _miles_ is used in the Latin chronicles of the day
renders it scarcely possible to ascertain at what period the order was
introduced. The same difficulty indeed occurs in regard to the Normans,
though from various circumstances connected with the accounts given by
William of Jumieges,[76] of the reigns of William I. and Richard I., Dukes
of Normandy, we are led to believe that Chivalry was very early introduced
among that people. At all events it seems certain that after the accession
of Richard to the ducal dignity, A. D. 960, knightly feelings made great
progress among the Normans, and in 1003, we find an exploit so purely
chivalrous, performed by a body of forty gentlemen from Normandy, that we
cannot doubt the spirit of knighthood in its purest form had already
spread through that country.

"Forty Norman gentlemen," says Vertot, "all warriors, who had
distinguished themselves in the armies of the Duke of Normandy, returning
from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, disembarked in Italy without arms.
Having learned that the town of Salerno was besieged by the Saracens,
their zeal for religion caused them instantly to throw themselves into
that place. Guimard, the Prince of Salerno, had shut himself up in the
town, to defend it to the last against the infidels; and he immediately
caused arms and horses to be given to the Norman gentlemen, who made so
many vigorous and unexpected sallies upon the Saracens, that they
compelled them to raise the siege." In Italy we find many traces of
Chivalry at an early date, and it would appear that the institution which
took its rise in France was no sooner known than adopted by most other
nations. The Normans, whom we have seen above succouring the Prince of
Salerno in his necessity, did not remain a sufficient length of time in
Italy to spread the chivalrous spirit; but it is said that Guimard, after
using every effort to induce them to stay, sent deputies after them to
Normandy, praying for aid from the nobles of that country against the
Saracens. Several large bodies of Norman adventurers, in consequence of
his promises and persuasions, proceeded to establish themselves in Apulia
and Calabria, defeated the Saracens, cleared the south of Italy and part
of Greece of those locust-like invaders, and re-established the Greek and
Italian princes in their dominions. These princes, however, soon became
jealous of their new allies, and employed various base means to destroy
them. They, on the other hand, united for mutual defence, and under the
famous Robert Guiscard, one of twelve brothers who had left Normandy for
Italy together, they speedily conquered for themselves the countries which
they had restored to ungrateful lords. Guiscard was now universally
acknowledged as their chief, and thus began the chivalrous Norman empire
in Italy.

Nothing, perhaps, more favoured the general progress of Chivalry than the
state of religion in that day; which, overloaded with superstitions, and
decked out with every external pomp and ornament, appealed to the
imagination through the medium of the senses, and woke a thousand
enthusiasms which could find no such fitting career as in the pursuits of
knighthood. The first efforts of the feudal system, too, gradually
extending themselves to every part of Europe, joined to make Chivalry
spread through the different countries where they were felt, by raising up
a number of independent lords who--each anxious to reduce his neighbours
to vassalage, and to preserve his own separate lordship--required
continual armed support from others, to whom he offered in return honour
and protection.

Thus, for about a century, or perhaps a little more, after the first
institution of knighthood, Chivalry slowly gained ground, and by each
exploit of any particular body of knights (such, for instance, as we have
recorded of the Normans) the order became more and more respected, and its
establishment more firm, decided, and regular. It wanted but one great
enterprise commenced and carried through upon chivalrous principles alone
to render Chivalry, combined as it was with religion and the feudal
system, the great master power of Europe--and that enterprise was at hand.

The natural reverence for those countries, sanctified and elevated by so
many miracles, and rendered sublimely dear to the heart of every
Christian, as the land in which his salvation was brightly but terribly
worked out, had from all ages rendered Palestine an object of pilgrimage.
In the earliest times, after the recognition of the Christian faith by
Constantine, the subjects of the Roman empire had followed the example of
the empress Helena, and had deemed it almost a Christian duty to visit the
scenes of our Saviour's mortal career. For many ages while the whole of
Judea remained under the sway of the Cesars, the journey was an easy one.
Few difficulties waylaid the passenger, or gave pilgrimage even the merit
of dangers encountered and obstacles overcome.

Towards the seventh century, the eastern provinces of the Roman empire,
already weakened by many invasions, had to encounter the exertions of
another adversary, who succeeded in wresting them from their Christian
possessors. The successors of Mahomet, who from a low station had become a
great legislator, a mighty conqueror, and a pretended prophet, carried on
the conquest which he had begun in Arabia, and one by one made themselves
masters of Syria, Antioch, Persia, Medea, and in fact the greater part of
the rich continent of Asia.

It is not here my purpose to trace the progress of these conquerors, or to
examine for a moment the religion they professed. Suffice it, that in the
days of Charlemagne the fame of that great prince produced from the calif
Haroun al Raschid many liberal concessions in favour of the Christian
pilgrims to Jerusalem, now in the hands of the unbelievers.

Particular ages seem fertile in great men; and it is very rare to find one
distinguished poet, monarch, or conqueror standing alone in his own
century. Nay more;--we generally discover--however different the country
that produces them, and however opposite the circumstances under which
they are placed--that there is a similarity in the character of the mind,
if I may so express myself without obscurity, of the eminent persons
produced in each particular age. This was peculiarly the case in the age
of Charlemagne. It seemed as if the most remote corners of the earth had
made an effort, at the same moment, to produce from the bosom of barbarism
and confusion a great and intelligent monarch--an Alfred, a Haroun, and a
Charlemagne. The likeness seemed to be felt by the two great emperors of
the east and the west; and a reciprocation of courtesy[77] and friendship
appears to have taken place between them, most rare in that remote age.
Various presents were transmitted from one to the other; and the most
precious offering that the Christian monarch could receive, the keys of
the Holy City, were sent from Bagdad to Aix, together with a standard,
which has been supposed to imply the sovereignty of Jerusalem resigned by
Haroun to his great contemporary. Nothing could afford a nobler proof of a
great, a liberal, and a delicate mind, than the choice evinced by the
calif in his gift. Charlemagne took advantage so far of Haroun's
liberality,[78] as to establish an hospital and a library for the Latin
pilgrims.

The successors of Haroun, and more particularly Monstacer Billah,
continued to yield tolerance at least, if not protection, to the
Christians of Jerusalem. The pilgrims also were more or less protected
during the reigns that followed, both from motives of liberal feeling and
of interest, as the great influx of travellers, especially from Italy,
brought much wealth and commerce into Syria.

Under the califs of the Fatemite race several persecutions took place; and
when at length the invasion of the Turkish hordes had brought the whole of
Palestine under the dominion of a wild and barbarous race, Jerusalem was
taken and sacked; and while the Christian inhabitants were treated with
every sort of brutal cruelty, the pilgrims were subject to taxation[79] on
their arrival, as well as liable to plunder by the way.

A piece of gold was exacted for permission to enter the Holy City; and at
that time, when the value of the precious metals was infinitely higher
than in the present day, few, if any, of the pilgrims on their arrival
possessed sufficient to pay the cruel demand.

Thus, after having suffered toils unheard of--hunger, thirst, the parching
influence of a burning sky, sickness, danger, and often robbery, and
wounds; when the weary wanderer arrived at the very entrance of the city,
with the bourn of all his long pilgrimage before him, the enthusiastic
object of all his hopes in sight, the place of refuge and repose for which
he had longed and prayed within his reach--unless he could pay the
stipulated sum, he was driven by the barbarians from the gates, and was
forced to tread back all his heavy way unfurnished with any means, and
unsupported by any hope, or to die by the roadside of want, weariness, and
despair.

The pilgrimages nevertheless continued with unremitting zeal; and the
number of devotees increased greatly in the tenth and eleventh centuries.
In the tenth, indeed, the custom of pilgrimage became almost universal,
from a misinterpretation[80] of a prophecy in the Apocalypse. A general
belief prevailed that at the end of the tenth century, the thousand years
being concluded, the world was to be judged; and crowds of men and women,
in the frantic hope of expiating their sins by the long and painful
journey to the Holy Land, flocked from all parts of Europe towards
Jerusalem.

Many of the more clear-sighted and sensible of the Christian prelates had
from time to time attempted to dissuade the people from these dangerous
and fatal pilgrimages; but the principle of bodily infliction being
received as a mark of internal penitence and a means of obtaining
absolution, had been so long inculcated by the church of Rome, that the
current of popular opinion had received its impulse, and it was no longer
possible to turn it from its course. No penance could be more painful or
more consistent with the prejudices of the multitude, than a pilgrimage to
the Holy Land; and thus the priests continued often to enforce the act,
while the heads of the church themselves, as religion became corrupted,
learned to see this sort of penitence in the same light as the people, and
encouraged its execution. They found the great efficacy of external
excitements in stimulating the populace to that superstitious obedience on
which they were fast building up the authority of the Roman church, and
probably also were not without a share in the bigoted enthusiasm which
they taught. Thus in the tenth century the pilgrimages which fear lest the
day of judgment should be approaching induced many to undertake in
expiation of their sins, met but little opposition; while various meteoric
phenomena, of a somewhat awful nature, earthquakes, hurricanes, &c.,
contributed to increase the general alarm.

When these had passed by, and the dreaded epoch had brought forth nothing,
the current still continued to flow on in the course that it had taken;
and during the eleventh century several circumstances tended to increase
it. Among others the terror spread through France by the Papal Interdict,
called forth by the refractory adherence of Robert I. to his queen[81]
Bertha, brought more pilgrims than usual from that country.

Of many thousands who passed into Asia,[82] a few isolated individuals
only returned; but these every day, as they passed through the different
countries of Europe on their journey back, spread indignation and horror
by their account of the dreadful sufferings of the Christians in Judea.
Various[83] letters are reported as having been sent by the emperors of
the east to the different princes of Europe, soliciting aid to repel the
encroachments of the infidel; and if but a very small portion of the
crimes and cruelty attributed to the Turks by these epistles were believed
by the Christians, it is not at all astonishing that wrath and horror took
possession of every chivalrous bosom. Pope Sylvester II. had made an
ineffectual appeal to Christendom towards the end of the tenth century,
bringing forward the first idea of a crusade;[84] but the age was not then
ripe for a project that required a fuller developement of chivalrous
feelings. Gregory VII. revived the idea, and made it the subject of a very
pompous epistle; but he himself was one of the first to forget the
miseries of his fellow-christians in Palestine, in the pursuit of his own
aggrandizement.

Still, the persecution of the Christians in Palestine, and the murder and
pillage of the pilgrims continued; still the indignation of Europe was fed
and renewed by repeated tales of cruel barbarity committed in the Holy
Land--sufferings of the church--insults to religion--and merciless
massacres of countrymen and relations: still, also, the spirit of Chivalry
was each day spreading further and rising more powerfully, so that all was
preparing for some great and general movement. The lightning of the
crusade was in the people's hearts, and it wanted but one electric touch
to make it flash forth upon the world.

At this time a man, of whose early days we have little authentic
knowledge, but that he was born at Amiens, and from a soldier had become a
priest,[85] after living for some time the life of a hermit, became seized
with the desire of visiting Jerusalem. He was, according to all
accounts,[86] small in stature and mean in person; but his eyes possessed
a peculiar fire and intelligence, and his eloquence was powerful and
flowing. The fullest account of his manners and conduct is to be found in
Robert the Monk, who was present at the council of Clermont, and in
Guibert of Nogent, who speaks in the tone of one who has beheld what he
relates.

The first of these authors describes Peter the Hermit,[87] of whom we
speak, as esteemed among those who best understand the things of earth,
and superior in piety to all the bishops or abbots of the day. He fed upon
neither flesh nor bread, says the same writer, though he permitted himself
wine and other aliments, finding nevertheless his pleasure in the greatest
abstinence.

Guibert, or Gilbert, of Nogent, speaks still more fully of his public
conduct.[88] "He set out," says the writer, "from whence I know not, nor
with what design; but we saw him at that time passing through the towns
and villages, preaching every where, and the people surrounding him in
crowds, loading him with presents, and celebrating his sanctity with such
high eulogiums, that I never remember to have seen such honours rendered
to any other person. He showed himself very generous, however, in the
distribution of the things given to him. He brought back to their homes
the women that had abandoned their husbands, not without adding gifts of
his own, and re-established peace between those who lived unhappily, with
wonderful authority. In every thing he said or did, it seemed as if there
was something of divine; so much so, that people went to pluck some of the
hairs from his mule, which they kept afterward as relics; which I mention
here not that they really were so, but merely served to satisfy the public
love of any thing extraordinary. While out of doors he wore ordinarily a
woollen tunic, with a brown mantle, which fell down to his heels. He had
his arms and his feet bare, eat little or no bread, and lived upon fish
and wine."

Such was his appearance after his return: prior to that period it is
probable that this hermit had made himself remarkable for nothing but his
general eloquence and his ascetic severity. Great and extraordinary men
are often long before opportunity gives scope for the display of the
particular spirit whose efforts are destined to distinguish them. I mean
not to class Peter the Hermit among great men; but certainly he deserves
the character of one of the most extraordinary men that Europe ever
produced, if it were but for the circumstance of having convulsed a
world--led one continent to combat to extermination against another, and
yet left historians in doubt whether he was madman or prophet, fool or
politician.

Peter, however, accomplished in safety his pilgrimage to Jerusalem,[89]
paid the piece of gold demanded at the gates, and took up his lodging in
the house of one of the pious Christians of the Holy City. Here his first
emotion[90] seems to have been indignant horror at the barbarous and
sacrilegious brutality of the Turks. The venerable prelate of Tyre
represents him as conferring eagerly with his host upon the enormous
cruelties of the infidels, even before visiting the general objects of
devotion. Doubtless the ardent, passionate, enthusiastic mind of Peter had
been wrought upon at every step he took in the Holy Land, by the miserable
state of his brethren, till his feelings and imagination became excited to
almost frantic vehemence. After performing the duties of the pilgrimage,
visiting each object of reputed holiness,[91] and praying in those
churches which had the fame of peculiar sanctity, Peter, with his heart
wrung at beholding the objects of his deepest veneration in the hands of
the church's enemies, demanded an audience of the patriarch, to whom some
Latin friend presented him.

Simeon the patriarch, though a Greek, and consequently in the eyes of
Peter a heretic, was still a Christian, suffering in common with the rest
of the faithful in the Holy Land, and the hermit saw in him that character
alone. The union--the overflowing confidence with which the hermit and the
prelate appear to have treated each other--raises them both in our
estimation; but it also throws an historical light upon the character of
Peter, which places him in a more elevated situation than modern
historians have been willing to concede to him. The patriarch Simeon, a
man as famous for his good sense as for his piety, would not, surely, have
opened his inmost thoughts to a wandering pilgrim like Peter, and
intrusted to him a paper sealed with his own seal, which, if taken by the
Turks, would have ensured death to himself and destruction to Christianity
in Palestine, had he not recognised in the hermit "a man,"[92] to use the
words of William of Tyre, "full of prudence and experience in the things
of this world."

This, however, was the case; and after long conversations, wherein many a
tear was shed over the hapless state of the Holy Land, it was determined,
at the suggestion of Peter, that the patriarch should write to the pope
and the princes of the west, setting forth the miseries of Jerusalem and
of the faithful people of the Holy City, and praying for aid and
protection against the merciless sword of the Saracen. Peter, on his part,
promised to seek out each individual prince, and to show, with his whole
powers of language, the ills of the Christians of Palestine.

From these conversations Peter went again and again to pray in the church
of the Resurrection, petitioning ardently for aid in the great undertaking
before him. On one of these occasions it is said that he fell asleep,[93]
and beheld the Saviour in a vision, who exhorted him to hasten on his
journey, and persevere in his design.

Without searching for any thing preternatural, the vision is not at all
difficult to believe, though the place of its occurrence seems to have
been fictitious. Nothing could be more natural than for Peter the Hermit,
with his mind full of the mission he was about to undertake, to dream that
the Being in whose cause he believed himself engaged appeared to encourage
him, and to hasten his enterprise; and it is easy to conceive that, with
full confidence in this manifestation of heavenly favour, he should set
forth upon his journey with enthusiastic zeal.

Bearing the letter of the patriarch, Peter now returned in haste to Italy,
and sought out the pope, to declare the miseries of the church in the Holy
Land, and to propose the means of its deliverance. Urban II., who then
occupied the apostolic chair, had inherited from Gregory wars and
contestations with the emperor Henry IV., and was at the same time
embroiled with the weak and luxurious Philip I. of France, on the subject
of that king's adulterous intercourse with Bertrade. He, as well as
Gregory, had taken refuge in Apulia and Calabria, and had thrown himself
upon the protection of the famous Robert Guiscard, who readily granted him
the aid of that powerful mind which made the utmost parts of the earth
tremble.[94]

It does not correctly appear at what place Urban sojourned at the time of
Peter's arrival in Italy.[95] His whole support was, evidently, still in
the family of Guiscard; and it seems that with Boemond, Prince of
Tarentum, the gallant and chivalrous son of Robert, he first held council
upon the hermit's[96] great and interesting proposal, before he determined
on the line of conduct to be pursued.

One of the historians of the crusades,[97] attributing perhaps somewhat
too much the spirit of modern politics to an age whose genius was of very
different quality, supposes that the course determined on by the pope and
his ally was, in fact, principally a shrewd plot to fix Urban firmly in
the Vatican, and to forward Boemond's ambitious views in Greece. It seems
to me, however, that such a supposition is perfectly irreconcilable with
the subsequent conduct of either. The pope shortly after threw himself
into the midst of his enemies, to hold a council on the subject of the
crusades; and Boemond abandoned every thing in Europe to carry on the holy
war in Palestine. It is much more natural to imagine that the spirit of
their age governed both the prelate and the warrior--the enthusiasm of
religion the one, and the enthusiasm of Chivalry the other.

However that may be, Peter the Hermit met with a most encouraging
reception from the pope. The sufferings of his fellow-christians brought
tears from the prelate's eyes; the general scheme of the crusade was
sanctioned[98] instantly by his authority; and, promising his quick and
active concurrence, he sent him on, the pilgrim to preach the deliverance
of the Holy Land through all the countries of Europe. Peter wanted neither
zeal nor activity[99]--from town to town, from province to province, from
country to country, he spread the cry of vengeance on the Turks, and
deliverance to Jerusalem! The warlike spirit of the people was at its
height; the genius of Chivalry was in the vigour of its early youth; the
enthusiasm of religion had now a great and terrible object before it, and
all the gates of the human heart were open to the eloquence of the
preacher. That eloquence was not exerted in vain; nations rose at his word
and grasped the spear; and it only wanted some one to direct and point the
great enterprise that was already determined.

In the mean time the pope did not forget his promise; and while Peter the
Hermit spread the inspiration throughout Europe,[100] Urban called
together a council at Placentia, to which deputies were admitted from the
emperor of Constantinople, who displayed the progress of the Turks, and
set forth the danger to all Christendom of suffering their arms to advance
unopposed. The opinion of the assembly was universally favourable to the
crusade; and trusting to the popularity of the measure, and the
indications of support which he had already met with, the pope determined
to cross the Alps and to hold a second council in the heart of Gaul.

The ostensible object of this council was to regulate the state of the
church, and to correct abuses; but the great object was, in fact, the
crusade. It is useless to investigate the motives which gave Urban II.
courage to summon a council, destined, among other things, to solemnly
reprobate the dissolute conduct of Philip of France, in the midst of
dominions, if not absolutely feudatory to the crown[101] of that monarch,
at least bound to it by friendship and alliance. Whether it arose from
fortitude of a just cause, or from reliance on political calculation, the
prelate's judgment was proved by the event to be right. After one or two
changes in regard to the place of meeting, the council was assembled at
Clermont, in Auvergne,[102] and was composed of an unheard-of multitude of
priests, princes, and nobles, both of France and Germany, all willing and
eager to receive the pope's injunctions with reverence and obedience.
After having terminated the less important affairs which formed the
apparent business of the meeting, and which occupied the deliberation of
seven days, Urban, one of the most eloquent men of the age, came forth
from the church[103] in which the principal ecclesiastics were assembled,
and addressed the immense concourse which had been gathered into one of
the great squares, no building being large enough to contain the number.

The prelate[104] then, with the language best calculated to win the hearts
of all his hearers, displayed the miseries of the Christians in the Holy
Land. He addressed the multitude as a people peculiarly favoured by God,
in the gift of courage, strength, and true faith. He told them that their
brethren in the east were trampled under the feet of infidels, to whom
God had not granted the light of his Holy Spirit--that fire, plunder, and
the sword had desolated completely the fair plains of Palestine--that her
children were led away captive, or enslaved, or died under tortures too
horrible to recount--that the women of their land were subjected to the
impure passions of the pagans, and that God's own altar, the symbols of
salvation, and the precious relics of the saints were all desecrated by
the gross and filthy abomination of a race of heathens. To whom, then, he
asked--to whom did it belong to punish such crimes, to wipe away such
impurities, to destroy the oppressors, and to raise up the oppressed? To
whom, if not to those who heard him, who had received from God strength,
and power, and greatness of soul; whose ancestors had been the prop of
Christendom, and whose kings had put a barrier to the progress of
infidels? "Think!" he cried, "of the sepulchre of Christ our Saviour
possessed by the foul heathen!--think of all the sacred places dishonoured
by their sacrilegious impurities!--O brave knights, offspring of
invincible fathers, degenerate not from your ancient blood! remember the
virtues of your ancestors, and if you feel held back from the course
before you by the soft ties of wives, of children, of parents, call to
mind the words of our Lord himself: 'Whosoever loves father or mother more
than me, is not worthy of me. Whosoever shall abandon for my name's sake
his house, or his brethren, or his sisters, or his father, or his mother,
or his wife, or his children, or his lands, shall receive an hundredfold,
and shall inherit eternal life.'"

The prelate then went on to point out the superior mundane advantages
which those might obtain who took the Cross. He represented their own
country as poor and arid, and Palestine as a land flowing with milk and
honey; and, blending the barbarous ideas of a dark age with the powerful
figures of enthusiastic eloquence, he proceeded--"Jerusalem is in the
centre of this fertile land; and its territories, rich above all others,
offer, so to speak, the delights of Paradise. That land, too, the Redeemer
of the human race rendered illustrious by his advent, honoured by his
residence, consecrated by his passion, repurchased by his death,
signalized by his sepulture. That royal city, Jerusalem--situated in the
centre of the world--held captive by infidels, who deny the God that
honoured her--now calls on you and prays for her deliverance. From
you--from you above all people she looks for comfort, and she hopes for
aid; since God has granted to you, beyond other nations, glory and might
in arms. Take, then, the road before you in expiation of your sins, and
go, assured that, after the honour of this world shall have passed away,
imperishable glory shall await you even in the kingdom of heaven!"

Loud shouts of "God wills it! God wills it!" pronounced simultaneously by
the whole people, in all the different dialects and languages of which the
multitude was composed, here interrupted for a moment the speech of the
prelate: but, gladly seizing the time, Urban proceeded, after having
obtained silence, "Dear brethren, to-day is shown forth in you that which
the Lord has said by his evangelist--'When two or three shall be assembled
in my name, there shall I be in the midst of them;' for if the Lord God
had not been in your souls, you would not all have pronounced the same
words; or, rather, God himself pronounced them by your lips, for he it was
that put them in your hearts. Be they, then, your war-cry in the combat,
for those words came forth from God.--Let the army of the Lord, when it
rushes upon his enemies, shout but that one cry, 'God wills it! God wills
it!'[105]

"Remember, however, that we neither order nor advise this journey to the
old, nor to the weak, nor to those who are unfit to bear arms. Let not
this way be taken by women, without their husbands, or their brothers, or
their legitimate guardians, for such are rather a burden than an aid. Let
the rich assist the poor, and bring with them, at their own charge, those
who can bear arms to the field. Still, let not priests nor clerks, to
whatever place they may belong, set out on this journey without the
permission of their bishop; nor the layman undertake it without the
blessing of his pastor, for to such as do so their journey shall be
fruitless. Let whoever is inclined to devote himself to the cause of God,
make it a solemn engagement, and bear the cross of the Lord either on his
breast or on his brow till he set out; and let him who is ready to begin
his march place the holy emblem on his shoulders, in memory of that
precept of the Saviour--'He who does not take up his cross and follow me,
is not worthy of me.'"

The pontiff thus ended his oration, and the multitude prostrating
themselves before him, repeated the _Confiteor_[106] after one of the
cardinals. The pope then pronounced the absolution of their sins, and
bestowed on them his benediction; after which they retired to their homes
to prepare for the great undertaking to which they had vowed themselves.

Miracles are told of the manner in which the news of this council, and of
the events that distinguished it, spread to every part of the world; but
nevertheless it did spread, as may easily be conceived, with great
quickness, without any supernatural aid; and, to make use of the words of
him from whom we have sketched the oration of the pope, "Throughout the
earth, the Christians glorified themselves and were filled with joy, while
the Gentiles of Arabia and Persia trembled and were seized with sadness:
the souls of the one race were exalted, those of the others stricken with
fear and stupor."

Great, certainly, was the influence which the zeal and eloquence of Urban
gave him over the people. Some authors, with a curious sort of historical
puritanism, which leads them to judge of ages past only by the principles
of the day in which they themselves exist, have reproached the pope with
not using the means in his hands for purposes which would have needed the
heart of a Fenelon to conceive properly, and the head of a Napoleon to
execute. They say that, with the powers which he did possess, he might
have reformed a world! It is hardly fair, methinks, to require of a man in
a barbarous, ignorant, corrupted age the enlightened visions of the
nineteenth century.

Pope Urban II., at the end of the eleventh century, showed a great
superiority to the age in which he lived, and at the council of Clermont
evinced qualities of both the heart and the mind which have deservedly
brought his name down to us with honour. His first act in the council was
to excommunicate, for adulterous profligacy, Philip, monarch of the very
ground on which he stood; and, in so doing, he made use of the only
acknowledged authority by which the kings of that day could be checked in
the course of evil. Whether the authority itself was or was not
legitimate, is not here the question; but, being at the time undisputed,
and employed for the best of objects, its use can in no way fairly be
cited as an instance either of pride or ambition. The pope's conduct in
preaching the crusade is equally justifiable. His views were of course
those of the age in which he lived, and he acted with noble enthusiasm in
accordance with those views. He made vast efforts, he endangered his
person, he sacrificed his ease and comfort, to accomplish what no
churchman of his day pretended to doubt was a glorious and a noble
undertaking. In thus acting, he displayed great qualities of mind, and
showed himself superior to the century in powers of _conducting_, if he
was not so in the powers of _conceiving_ great designs.

It would be very difficult to prove, also, that the pope, had he even
possessed the will, could, by the exertion of every effort, have produced
the same effect in any other cause that he did in favour of the crusades.
I have already attempted to show that all things were prepared in Europe
for the expedition to the Holy Land, by the spirit of religious and
military enthusiasm; and the task was light, to aid in pouring on the
current of popular feeling in the direction which it had already begun to
take, when compared with the labour necessary to have turned that current
into another channel. He who does not grasp the spirit of the age on which
he writes, but judges of other days by the feelings of his own, is like
one who would adapt a polar dress to the climate of the tropics.

Before closing this chapter, one observation also must be made respecting
the justice of the crusade, which enterprise it has become somewhat
customary to look upon as altogether cruel and unnecessary. Such an
opinion, however, is in no degree founded on fact. The crusade was not
only as just as any other warfare of the day, but as just as any that ever
was waged. The object was, the protection and relief of a cruelly
oppressed and injured people--the object was, to repel a strong, an
active, and an encroaching enemy--the object was, to wrest from the hands
of a bloodthirsty and savage people territories which they themselves
claimed by no right but the sword, and in which the population they had
enslaved was loudly crying for deliverance from their yoke--the object
was, to defend a weak and exposed frontier from the further aggression of
a nation whose boast was conquest.

Such were the objects of the crusades; and though much of superstition was
mingled with the incitements, and many cruelties committed in its course,
the evils were not greater than ordinary ambition every day produces; and
the motives were as fair as any of those that have ever instigated the
many feuds and warfares of the world.




CHAPTER IV.

_The Effects of the Council of Clermont--State of France--Motives of the
People for embracing the Crusade--Benefits produced--The Enthusiasm
general--Rapid Progress--The First Bodies of Crusaders begin their
March--Gautier Sans Avoir--His Army--Their Disasters--Reach
Constantinople--Peter the Hermit sets out with an immense Multitude--
Storms Semlin--Defeated at Nissa--His Host dispersed--The Remains
collected--Joins Gautier--Excesses of the Multitude--The Italians and
Germans separate from the French--The Germans exterminated--The French cut
to pieces--Conduct of Alexius._


The immediate effects of the council of Clermont are detailed with so much
animation by Guibert of Nogent, that I shall attempt to trace them nearly
in his own words, merely observing, that previous to his departure from
France, Urban II., having taken every means in his power to secure the
property of the crusaders during their absence, committed the chief
direction of the expedition to Adhemar, Bishop of Puy, in Auvergne.[107]

"As soon as the council of Clermont was concluded," says the historian, "a
great rumour spread through the whole of France, and as soon as fame
brought the news of the orders of the pontiff to any one, he went
instantly to solicit his neighbours and his relations to engage with him
in the _way of God_, for so they designated the purposed expedition.

"The Counts Palatine[108] were already full of the desire to undertake
this journey; and all the knights of an inferior order felt the same zeal.
The poor themselves soon caught the flame so ardently, that no one paused
to think of the smallness of his wealth, or to consider whether he ought
to yield his house and his fields, and his vines; but each one set about
selling his property, at as low a price as if he had been held in some
horrible captivity, and sought to pay his ransom without loss of time.

"At this period, too, there existed a general dearth. The rich even felt
the want of corn; and many, with every thing to buy, had nothing, or next
to nothing, wherewithal to purchase what they needed. The poor tried to
nourish themselves with the wild herbs of the earth; and, as bread was
very dear, sought on all sides food heretofore unknown, to supply the
place of corn. The wealthy and powerful were not exempt; but finding
themselves menaced with the famine which spread around them, and beholding
every day the terrible wants of the poor, they contracted their expenses,
and lived with the most narrow parsimony, lest they should squander the
riches now become so necessary.

"The ever insatiable misers rejoiced in days so favourable to their
covetousness; and casting their eyes upon the bushels of grain which they
had hoarded long before, calculated each day the profits of their avarice.
Thus some struggled with every misery and want, while others revelled in
the hopes of fresh acquisitions. No sooner, however, had Christ inspired,
as I have said, innumerable bodies of people to seek a voluntary exile,
than the money which had been hoarded so long was spread forth in a
moment; and that which was horribly dear while all the world was in
repose, was on a sudden sold for nothing, as soon as every one began to
hasten towards their destined journey. Each man hurried to conclude his
affairs; and, astonishing to relate, we then saw--so sudden was the
diminution in the value of every thing--we then saw seven sheep sold for
five deniers. The dearth of grain, also, was instantly changed into
abundance; and every one, occupied solely in amassing money for his
journey, sold every thing that he could, not according to its real worth,
but according to the value set upon it by the buyer.

"In the mean while, the greater part of those who had not determined upon
the journey, joked and laughed at those who were thus selling their goods
for whatever they could get; and prophesied that their voyage would be
miserable, and their return worse. Such was ever the language one day; but
the next--suddenly seized with the same desire as the rest--those who had
been most forward to mock, abandoned every thing for a few crowns, and set
out with those whom they had laughed at but a day before. Who shall tell
the children and the infirm that, animated with the same spirit, hastened
to the war? Who shall count the old men and the young maids who hurried
forward to the fight?--not with the hope of aiding, but for the crown of
martyrdom to be won amid the swords of the infidels. 'You, warriors,' they
cried, 'you shall vanquish by the spear and brand; but let us, at least,
conquer Christ by our sufferings.' At the same time, one might see a
thousand things springing from the same spirit, which were both
astonishing and laughable: the poor shoeing their oxen, as we shoe horses,
and harnessing them to two-wheeled carts, in which they placed their
scanty provisions and their young children; and proceeding onward, while
the babes, at each town or castle that they saw, demanded eagerly whether
that was Jerusalem."

Such is the picture presented, by an eyewitness, of the state of France
after the first promulgation of the crusade; and a most extraordinary
picture it is. The zeal, the enthusiasm, the fervour of the spirit, the
brutal ignorance and dark barbarity of the people, are the objects that
catch the eye from the mere surface; but underneath may be seen a hundred
fine and latent tints which mingle in the portrait of the age. There may
be found the hope of gain and the expectation of wealth in other lands, as
well as the excitement of devotion; and there also may be traced the
reckless, daring courage of a period when comfort was unknown, and when
security was scarcely less to be expected among the swords of the
Saracens, than in the fields of France and Germany. While the thirst of
adventure, the master-passion of the middle ages, prompted to any change
of scene and circumstances, imagination portrayed the land in view with
all that adventitious splendour which none--of all the many betrayers of
the human mind--so well knows how to bestow as hope.

The same land, when the Jews marched towards it from the wilderness, had
been represented to them as a land flowing with milk and honey,--rich in
all gifts; and doubtless that inducement moved the stubborn Hebrews, as
much as the command of him they had so often disobeyed. Now the very same
prospect was held out to another host of men, as ignorant of what lay
before them as the Jews themselves; and it may be fairly supposed that, in
their case too, imaginary hopes, and all the gay phantasma of ambition,
shared powerfully with religion in leading them onward to the promised
land.

Still zeal, and sympathy, and indignation, and chivalrous feeling, and the
thirst of glory, and the passion for enterprise, and a thousand vague but
great and noble aspirations, mingled in the complicated motive of the
crusade. It increased by contagion; it grew by communion; it spread from
house to house, and from bosom to bosom; it became a universal desire--an
enthusiasm--a passion--a madness.

In the mean while, the crusade was not without producing a sensible
benefit even to Europe. The whole country had previously been desolated by
feuds[109] and pillage, and massacre. Castle waged war with castle: baron
plundered baron; and from field to field, and city to city, the traveller
could scarcely pass without injury or death. No sooner,[110] however, had
the crusade been preached at the council of Clermont, than the universal
peace, which was there commanded, called the _Truce[111] of God_, was
sworn throughout the country, the plunder ceased and the feuds
disappeared. The very fact of the wicked, the infamous, and the
bloodthirsty having embraced the crusade, either from penitence or from
worse motives, was a positive good to Europe. That not alone the
good,[112] the religious, the zealous, or the brave, filled the ranks of
the Cross is admitted on all hands; yet those who had once assumed that
holy sign were obliged, in some degree, to act as if their motives had
been pure, and their very absence was a blessing to the land they left.

Still the crusade went on; and the imagination of the people being once
directed towards a particular object found, even in the phenomena which in
former days would have struck nations with fear and apprehension, signs of
blessing and omens of success. An earthquake itself[113] was held as good
augury; and scarcely a meteor shot across the sky without affording some
theme for hope.

The sign of the Cross was now to be seen on the shoulder of every one; and
being generally cut in red[114] cloth, was a conspicuous and remarkable
object. As these multiplied, the hearts even of the fearful grew strong,
and the contagion of example added to the number every hour. Peter the
Hermit, indefatigable in his calling, though his mind seems day by
day[115] to have become more excited, till enthusiasm grew nearly akin to
madness, gathered a vast concourse of the lower orders, and prepared to
set out by the way of Hungary. But the real and serviceable body of
crusaders was collected from among another class, whose military habits
and chivalrous character were well calculated to effect the great object
proposed.

In France, Hugh, the brother of King Philip, Robert, Count of Flanders,
Stephen, Count of Chartres and Blois, Adhemar, Bishop of Puy, William,
Bishop of Orange, Raimond, Count of Toulouse, and many others of the
highest station, assumed the Cross, and called together all the knights
and retainers that their great names and influence could bring into the
field. Robert, Duke of Normandy, son of William the Conqueror of England,
accompanied by a number of English barons, prepared also for the crusade.
Godfrey of Loraine, and his brothers were added to the number; and
Boemond, Prince of Tarento, the valiant son of Robert Guiscard, cast from
him the large possessions which his sword and that of his father had
conquered, and turned his hopes and expectations towards the east.

The immense multitudes thus assembled are said to have amounted to nearly
six millions of souls;[116] and one of the most astonishing proofs of the
rapidity with which the news of the crusade must have spread, and the
enthusiasm with which it was received, is to be found in the fact, that
the council of Clermont was held in the November of the year 1095, and
that early in the spring of 1096 a large body of the crusaders was in
motion towards Palestine.

The historians of the day are not at all agreed in regard to which was the
multitude that led the way towards the Holy Land. It appears[117] almost
certain, however, that _Gautier sans avoir_, or Walter the Penniless, a
Burgundian gentleman, without fortune, who had assembled a considerable
band of the lower classes under the banner of the Cross, was the first who
set out in compliance with the general vow. He was, according to all
accounts, a complete soldier of fortune, renowned for his poverty even to
a proverb, but by no means, as has been asserted, without military fame.
All[118] the contemporary writers designate him by his cognomen of
poverty; but all at the same time describe him as an illustrious warrior.
Nevertheless, the host that he led was rather an ill-governed crowd of men
on foot than an army; and but eight knights accompanied the leader on his
expedition. The difficulties of the undertaking were incalculable; and the
followers of Walter had provided but little for the necessities of the
way. It showed, however, no small skill in that leader to conduct the
disorderly rabble by which he was followed, so far as he did in safety.

Passing through Germany,[119] he entered into Hungary; where, entangled
among the marshes and passes of that kingdom, his whole followers must
have perished inevitably, had he not met with the greatest kindness and
assistance from the king and people of the country, who, professing the
Christian religion, understood and venerated the motives of the crusade.

Thus the host of Walter swept on till their arrival at Semlin, where some
stragglers were attacked and plundered by a party of Hungarians less
humane than their brethren. The arms and crosses of the crusaders who had
thus been despoiled, were fixed upon the walls of the city as a sort of
trophy; but Walter, though strongly urged by his followers to seek
vengeance for the insult, wisely forbore and passing forward, entered into
Bulgaria. Here the champions of the Cross met with no further aid. The
people regarded them with jealous suspicion; the cities shut their gates
upon them; all commerce was prohibited, and all supplies denied.

Famine now imperiously urged them to violence; and having taken possession
of whatever flocks and herds they could find, the crusaders soon found
themselves attacked by the Bulgarians, by whom considerable numbers were
cut off and destroyed.

Walter himself, with great wisdom[120] and resolution, forced his way
through innumerable difficulties, till he had left behind him the
inhospitable country of the Bulgarians; and at length brought his army,
infinitely wasted by both famine and the sword, to the neighbourhood of
Constantinople. Here he obtained permission to refresh his forces, and
wait the arrival of Peter the Hermit himself, who followed close upon his
steps.

The multitude which had been collected by the Hermit was even of a less
uniform and regular description than that which had followed _Gautier sans
avoir_. Men, women, and children,--all sexes, ages, and professions,--many
and distinct languages--a quantity of baggage and useless encumbrance,
rendered the army of Peter as unwieldy and dangerous an engine as ever was
put in motion. Notwithstanding its bulk and inconsistency, it also
proceeded in safety, and without much reproach, through Germany and
Hungary; but at Semlin, the sight of the crosses and vestments which had
been stripped from[121] the stragglers of Walter's host roused the anger
of the multitude. The town was attacked and taken by assault, with all the
acts of savage ferocity which usually follow such an occurrence; and the
crusaders, without remorse, gave themselves up to every barbarity that
dark and unrestrained passions could suggest.[122]

The news of this event soon reached the king of Hungary; who, calling
together a considerable force, marched to avenge the death and pillage of
his subjects. His approach instantly caused Peter to decamp from Semlin;
but the passage of the Morava was opposed by a tribe of savage Bulgarians:
few boats were to be procured; those that were found were of small
dimensions; and the rafts that could be hastily constructed were but
little manageable in a broad and rapid river. Some of the crusaders thus
perished in the water, some fell by the arrows of the enemy; but the tribe
that opposed the passage being defeated and put to flight, the rest of
Peter's followers were brought over in safety.

The Hermit now, after having sacrificed the prisoners to what was then
considered a just resentment, pursued his way to Nissa, in which town the
Duke of Bulgaria had fortified himself, having abandoned Belgrade at the
approach of the army of the Cross. Finding, however, that Peter did not at
all contemplate taking vengeance for the inhospitality shown to _Gautier
sans avoir_, the duke wisely permitted his subjects to supply the
crusaders with necessaries.

Thus all passed tranquilly under the walls of Nissa, till Peter and his
host had absolutely departed, when some German stragglers, remembering a
controversy of the night before with one of the Bulgarian merchants, set
fire to several mills and houses without the walls of the town.

Enraged at this wanton outrage, the armed people of the city rushed out
upon the aggressors, and, not contented with sacrificing them to their
fury, fell upon the rear of the Hermit's army, glutted their wrath with
the blood of all that opposed them, and carried off the baggage, the
women, the children, and all that part of the multitude whose weakness at
once caused them to linger behind, and left them without defence.

The moment that Peter heard of this event, he turned back; and, with a
degree of calmness and moderation that does high honour to his memory, he
endeavoured to investigate the cause of the disaster, and conciliate by
courtesy and fair words. This negotiation was highly successful; the duke,
appeased with the vengeance he had taken, agreed to return the prisoners
and the baggage, and every thing once more assumed a peaceful aspect; when
suddenly, a body of a thousand imprudent men, fancying that they saw an
opportunity of seizing on the town, passed the stone bridge, and
endeavoured to scale the walls. A general conflict ensued; the
ill-disciplined host of the crusaders was defeated and dispersed, and
Peter himself, obliged to fly alone, took refuge, like the rest, in the
neighbouring forests.

For some time he pursued his way over mountains,[123] and wastes, and
precipices; and it may easily be conceived that his heart--so lately
elated with honour, and command, and gratified enthusiasm--now felt
desolate and crushed, to find the multitude his voice had gathered
dispersed or slain, and himself a wandering fugitive in a foreign land,
without shelter, protection, or defence. At length, it is said, he met by
chance several of his best and most courageous knights at the top of a
mountain, where they had assembled with no more than five hundred men,
which seemed at first all that remained of his vast army.[124] He caused,
however, signals to be made and horns to be sounded in the different parts
of the forest, that any of the scattered crusaders within hearing might be
brought to one spot.

These and other means which were put in practice to call together the
remnants of his army, proved so successful, that before night seven
thousand men were collected, and with this force he hastened to march on
towards Constantinople. As he went, other bands, which had been separated
from him in the confusion of the flight, rejoined him, and the only
difficulty, as the host advanced, was to procure the necessaries of life.

The news of Peter's adventures flew before them, and reached even
Constantinople. Alexius, the emperor, who had not yet learned to fear the
coming of the crusaders, sent deputies to meet the Hermit, and to hasten
his journey; and at Philippopoli the eloquent display of his sufferings,
which Peter addressed to the assembled people, moved their hearts to
compassion and sympathy. The wants of the host were plentifully supplied,
and, after reposing for some days in the friendly city, the whole body,
now again amounting to thirty thousand men, set out for Constantinople,
where they arrived in safety, and joined the troops which Walter the
Penniless had conducted thither previously.

Here they found a considerable number of Lombards and Italians; but these,
also, as well as the troops which they had themselves brought thither were
not only of the lowest, but of the most disorderly classes of the people.
It is no wonder therefore--although Alexius supplied them with money and
provisions, and tried to secure to them the repose and comfort that they
needed in every respect--that these ruffian adventurers should soon begin
to tire of tranquillity and order, and to exercise their old trades of
plunder and excess.[125] They overturned palaces, set fire to the public
buildings, and stripped even the lead off the roofs of the churches, which
they afterward sold to the Greeks from whom they had plundered it.

Horrified by these enormities,[126] the emperor soon found a pretext to
hurry them across the Bosphorus, still giving them the humane caution, to
wait the arrival of stronger forces, before they attempted to quit
Bithynia. Here, however, their barbarous licentiousness soon exceeded all
bounds, and Peter the Hermit himself, having lost command over his
turbulent followers, returned to Constantinople in despair, upon the
pretence of consulting with the emperor on the subject of provisions.[127]

After his departure, the Lombards and Germans separated themselves from
the French and Normans, whose crimes and insolence disgusted even their
barbarous fellows. _Gautier sans avoir_ still continued in command of the
French, who remained where Peter had left them; but the Italians[128] and
Germans chose for their leader one Renault, or Rinaldo, and, marching on,
made themselves masters of a fortress called Exorogorgon, or Xerigord.
Here they were attacked by the sultaun Soliman, who cut to pieces a large
body placed in ambuscade, and then invested the fort, which, being ill
supplied with water, he was well aware must surrender before long.

For eight days the besieged underwent tortures too dreadful to be dwelt
upon, from the most agonizing thirst. At the end of that time, Rinaldo and
his principal companions went over to the Turks, abandoned their religion,
and betrayed their brethren. The castle thus falling into the hands of the
infidels, the Christians that remained were slaughtered without mercy.

The news of this disaster was soon brought to the French camp, and
indignation spread among the crusaders.[129] Some say a desire of
vengeance, some a false report of the fall of Nice, caused the French to
insist upon hurrying forward towards the Turkish territory. Gautier wisely
resisted for some time all the entreaties of his troops, but at length
finding them preparing to march without his consent, he put himself at
their head, and led them towards Nice. Before reaching that place, he was
encountered by the Turkish forces. The battle was fierce, but unequal:
Gautier and his knights fought with desperate courage,[130] but all their
efforts were vain; the Christians were slaughtered in every direction; and
Gautier himself, after having displayed to the last that intrepid valour
for which he was renowned, fell under seven mortal wounds.

Not above three thousand Christians effected their escape to Civitot. Here
again they were attacked by the Turks, who surrounded the fortress with
vast piles of wood, in order to exterminate by fire the few of the
crusaders that remained. The besieged, however, watched their moment, and
while the wind blew towards the Turkish camp, set fire to the wood
themselves, which thus was consumed without injury to them, while many of
their enemies were destroyed by the flames.[131]

In the mean time one of the crusaders had made his way to Constantinople,
and communicated the news of all these disasters to Peter the Hermit. The
unhappy Peter, painfully disappointed, like all those who fix their
enthusiasm on the virtues or the prudence of mankind, was driven almost to
despair, by the folly and unworthiness of those in whom he had placed his
hopes. He nevertheless cast himself at the feet of the emperor
Alexius,[132] and besought him, with tears and supplications, to send some
forces to deliver the few crusaders who had escaped from the scimitar of
the Turks.

The monarch granted his request, and the little garrison of Civitot were
brought in safety to Constantinople. After their arrival, however, Alexius
ordered them to disperse and return to their own country; and with wise
caution bought their arms before he dismissed them;[133] thus at once
supplying them with money for their journey, and depriving them of the
means of plundering and ravaging his dominions as they went. Most of the
historians[134] of that age accuse Alexius of leaguing with the Turks,
even at this period, to destroy the crusaders, or, at least, of triumphing
in the fall of those very men whom he had himself called to his succour.

The conduct of Alexius in this transaction is not very clear, but it is
far from improbable that, fearful of the undisciplined multitude he had
brought into his dominions, horrified by their crimes, and indignant at
their pillage of his subjects, he beheld them fall by their own folly and
the swords of the enemy, without any effort to defend them, or any very
disagreeable feeling at their destruction. And indeed, when we remember
the actions they did commit within the limits of the Greek empire, we can
hardly wonder at the monarch, if he rejoiced at their punishment, or blame
him if he was indifferent to their fate.

Thus ended the great expedition of Peter the Hermit: but several others of
a similar unruly character took place previous to the march of those
troops, whose discipline, valour, and unity of purpose ensured a more
favourable issue to their enterprise. I shall touch but briefly upon these
mad and barbarous attempts, as a period of more interest follows.

The body of crusaders which seems to have succeeded immediately to that
led by Peter the Hermit was composed almost entirely of Germans, collected
together by a priest called Gottschalk.[135] They penetrated into Hungary;
but there, giving way to all manner of excesses, they were followed by
Carloman, the king of that country, with a powerful army, and having been
induced to lay down their arms, that the criminals might be selected and
punished, they were slaughtered indiscriminately by the Hungarians, who
were not a little glad to take vengeance for the blood shed by the army of
Peter at Semlin.

About the same period, immense bands of men and women came forth from
almost every country of Europe, with the symbol of the crusade upon their
shoulders, and the pretence of serving God upon their lips. They joined
together wheresoever they met, and, excited by a foul spirit of fanatical
cruelty, mingled with the most infamous moral depravity, proceeded towards
the south of Germany. They gave themselves up, we are told,[136] to the
pleasures of the table without intermission: men and women, and even
children, it is said, lived in a state of promiscuous debauchery; and,
preceded by a goose and a goat,[137] which, in their mad fanaticism, they
declared to be animated by the divine spirit, they marched onward,
slaughtering the Jews as they went; and proclaiming that the first duty of
Christians was to exterminate the nation which had rejected the Saviour
himself. Several of the German bishops bravely opposed them, and
endeavoured to protect the unhappy Hebrews; but still, vast multitudes
were slain, and many even sought self-destruction rather than encounter
the brutality of the fanatics, or abjure their religion.

Glutted with slaughter, the ungodly herd now turned towards Hungary; but
at Mersburg they were encountered by a large Hungarian force, which
disputed their passage over the Danube, absolutely refusing the road
through that kingdom to any future band of crusaders. The fanatics forced
their way across the river, attacked Mersburg itself with great fury and
perseverance, and succeeded in making a breach in the walls, when suddenly
an unaccountable terror seized them--none knew how or why--they abandoned
the siege, dispersed in dismay, and fled like scattered deer over the
country.

The Hungarians suffered not the opportunity to escape, and pursuing them
on every side, smote them during many days with a merciless fury, that
nothing but their own dreadful cruelties could palliate. The fields were
strewed with dead bodies, the rivers flowed with blood, and the very
waters of the Danube are said to have been hidden by the multitude of
corpses.

Disaster and death had, sooner or later, overtaken each body of the
crusaders that had hitherto, without union or command, set out towards the
Holy Land; but each of these very bands had been composed of the refuse
and dregs of the people. I do not mean by that word _dregs_ the poor, but
I mean the base--I do not mean those who were low in station, or even
ignorant in mind; but I mean those who were infamous in crime, and brutal
in desire. Doubtless, in these expeditions, some fell who were animated by
noble motives or excellent zeal; but such were few compared with those
whose objects were plunder, licentiousness, and vice. The swords of the
Hungarians and the Turks lopped these away; and I cannot find in my heart
to look upon the purification which Europe thus underwent with any thing
like sorrow. The crusade itself was by this means freed from many a base
and unworthy member; and Chivalry, left to act more in its own spirit,
though still participating deeply in the faults and vices of a barbarous
age, brought about a nobler epoch and a brighter event.




CHAPTER V.

_The Chivalry of Europe takes the Field--The Leaders--Godfrey of
Bouillon--Conducts his Army towards Constantinople--Hugh the Great--Leads
his Army through Italy--Embarks for Durazzo--Taken Prisoner--Liberated--
Robert, Duke of Normandy--Winters in Italy--Arrives at Constantinople--
Robert, Count of Flanders--Joins the rest--Boemond of Tarentum--Tancred--
Their March--Defeat the Greeks--Boemond does Homage--Tancred avoids it--
The Count of Toulouse arrives--Refuses to do Homage--Robert of Normandy
does Homage._


While the undisciplined and barbarous multitudes who first set out were
hurrying to destruction, various princes and leaders were engaged, as I
have before said, in collecting the Chivalry of Europe under the banner of
the Cross. Six distinguished chiefs--Godfrey of Bouillon, Duke of
Loraine--Hugh the Great, Count of Vermandois, and brother of Philip, King
of France--Robert, Duke of Normandy, brother of William Rufus--Robert,
Count of Flanders--Boemond, Prince of Tarentum--and Raimond, Count of
Toulouse--conducted six separate armies towards Constantinople: and I
propose, in this chapter, to follow each of them till their junction in
Bithynia.

It is indeed a pleasure to turn our eyes from scenes of horror and crime
to the contemplation of those great and shining qualities--those noble and
enthusiastic virtues, which entered into the composition of that rare
quintessence, the spirit of Chivalry.

Doubtless, in the war which I am about to paint there occurred many things
that are to be deeply regretted, as furnishing abundantly that quantity of
alloy which is ever, unhappily, mixed with virtue's purest gold: but, at
the same time, I now come to speak of men, in many of whom splendid
courage, and moral beauty, and religious zeal, and temperate wisdom, and
generous magnanimity, combined to form the great and wonderful of this
earth's children. Indeed, if ever there was a man who well merited the
glorious name of a true knight, that man was Godfrey of Bouillon; and few
have described him without becoming poets for that once.

I will not borrow from Tasso--who had the privilege of eulogium--but, in
striving to paint the character of the great leader of the crusade, I
shall take the words of one of the simplest of the writers of his
age,[138] and give them as nearly as possible in their original tone: "He
was beautiful in countenance," says Robert the Monk, "tall in stature,
agreeable in his discourse, admirable in his morals, and at the same time
so gentle, that he seemed better fitted for the monk than for the knight;
but when his enemies appeared before him, and the combat approached, his
soul became filled with mighty daring; like a lion, he feared not for his
person--and what shield, what buckler, could resist the fall of his
sword?"

Perhaps of all men of the age, Godfrey of Bouillon was the most
distinguished. His mother Ida, daughter of Godfrey, Duke of Loraine, was
celebrated for her love of letters,[139] and from her it is probable that
Godfrey himself derived that taste for literature, so singular among the
warriors of that day. He spoke several languages, excelled in every
chivalrous exercise, was calm and deliberate in council, firm and decided
in resolution; he was active, clearsighted, and prudent, while he was
cool, frank, and daring; in the battle he was fierce as the lion, but in
victory he was moderate and humane.

Though still in his prime of years when the crusades were preached, he was
already old in exploits: he had upheld Henry IV. on the imperial throne,
had attacked and forced the walls of Rome, and had shone in a hundred
fields, where his standard ever was raised upon the side of honour and of
virtue.

Long ere the idea of such an enterprise as the crusade became general in
Europe, Godfrey had often been heard to declare, when tales were brought
him of the miseries of the Holy Land, that he longed to travel to
Jerusalem,[140] not with staff and scrip,[141] but with spear and shield;
and it may well be conceived that his was one of the first standards
raised in the ranks of the Cross. A fever that had hung upon him for some
time left him at the tidings, and he felt as if he had shaken off a load
of years, and recovered all his youth.[142]

His fame as a leader soon collected an immense number of other barons and
knights, who willingly ranged themselves under his banner; and we find
that besides Baldwin, his brother[143]--and many other relations--the
lords of St. Paul, of Hainault, of Gray, of Toul, of Hache, of Conti, and
of Montagne, with their knights and retainers, had joined him before the
beginning of August,[144] and towards the middle of that month they began
their march with all the splendour of Chivalry.[145]

The progress of this new body of crusaders was directed, like that of
Peter the Hermit, towards Hungary; but the conduct maintained by the
followers of Godfrey was as remarkable for its strict discipline,
moderation, and order, as that of his predecessors had been for turbulence
and excess.[146] The first objects, however, that presented themselves on
the Hungarian frontier were the unburied corpses of the fanatic crowd
slain near Mersburg.

Here then Godfrey paused during three weeks,[147] investigating calmly the
causes of the bloody spectacle before him; after which he wrote to
Carloman, king of Hungary; and his letter on this occasion, mingling
firmness with moderation, gives a fair picture of his noble and dignified
character. Having mentioned the horrible sight which had arrested him in
his progress, and the rumours he had heard, he proceeds--"However severe
may have been the punishment inflicted on our brethren, whose remains lie
round about us, if that punishment was merited, our anger shall expire;
but if, on the contrary, you have calumniated the innocent, and given them
up to death, we will not pass over in silence the murder of the servants
of God, but will instantly show ourselves ready to avenge the blood of our
brethren."[148]

It was easy for Carloman to prove that the aggression had been on the side
of the crusaders; and after various acts of confidence between
Godfrey[149] and the king, the army of the Cross was permitted to pass
through Hungary, which they accomplished in safety and peace, maintaining
the strictest discipline and regularity, and trading with the people of
the country with good faith and courtesy. Hence, proceeding through
Bulgaria and Thrace, Godfrey led his troops peacefully on to Philippopoli,
where he was met by deputies from the emperor, charged with orders to see
that the crusaders should be furnished with every kind of necessary
provision.

In passing through Dacia and Bulgaria, the army of Godfrey had been not a
little[150] straitened for food, and it is impossible to say what might
have been the consequences, had the same dearth been suffered to continue.
The prudent conduct of the emperor did away all cause of violence, and
after the arrival of his deputies, the troops of the Cross celebrated his
liberality with joy and gratitude.

News soon reached the army[151] of Godfrey, however, which changed their
opinion of Alexius, and showed him as the subtle and treacherous being
that he really was. To explain what this news consisted of, I must turn
for a moment to another party of crusaders, who, while Godfrey pursued
his peaceful course through Hungary, marched towards the general
meeting-place at Constantinople, by the way of Italy.

Hugh, Count of Vermandois, had assembled an army even superior in number
to that of Godfrey of Bouillon, and was himself in every respect
calculated to shine at the head of such an armament. He was gallant,[152]
brave, handsome, and talented; but the calm and dignified spirit of
moderation, which so characterized Godfrey of Bouillon, was wanting in the
brother of the French king. Joined to his expedition, though marching in
separate bodies, and at distinct times,[153] were the troops of Robert,
Duke of Normandy, and Stephen, Count of Blois; with those of Robert, Count
of Flanders, in another division.[154]

The count of Vermandois, impetuous and proud, took his departure before
his companions, traversed Italy, and embarking at Barri, landed with but a
scanty train at Durazzo. His expectations were high, and his language
haughty, supposing he should find in the Greek emperor the same humbled
supplicant who had craved, in abject terms, assistance against the
infidels from his Christian brethren of the west. But the position of the
emperor had now changed. The Turks, occupied with other interests, no
longer menaced his frontier. The imperial city slept in peace and
splendour; and if he had any thing to fear, it was from his own restless
and turbulent subjects rather than from his Saracen foes. Nor, in fact,
had he ever been desirous of any thing like the expedition that was
entering his dominions. He had prayed for aid and assistance to defend his
country, but Urban had preached a crusade, and the princes were now in
arms to reconquer the Christian territories in Asia, as well as to protect
those of Europe. He had gladly heard of the crusade, and willingly
consented to it, it is true, as he well knew it would afford a mighty
diversion in his favour, but he then dreamed not of the armed millions
that were now swarming towards his capital. His position, too, had
changed, as I have said, and he immediately determined upon a line of
policy well suited to the weak subtlety of his character.

Alexius was one of those men whose minds are not of sufficient scope to
view life as a whole, and who therefore have not one great object in their
deeds; who act for the petty interests of the moment, and whose cunning,
compared with the talents of a really great mind, is like the skill of a
fencing-master compared with the genius of a great general. He saw not,
and felt not, the vast ultimate benefit which he might receive from
maintaining a dignified friendship with the princes commanding the
crusade. He did not perceive what an immense and powerful engine was
placed, if he chose it, at his disposition.--In his narrow selfishness, he
only beheld a temporary danger from the great forces that were
approaching, and he strove to diminish them by every base and petty
artifice. He did not endeavour to make himself great by their means, but
he tried to bring them down to his own littleness. It is true, that on
some occasions he showed feelings of liberality and humanity; but from his
general conduct it is but fair to infer that these were the
inconsistencies of selfishness; and that though he was sometimes prudent
enough to be liberal, he was not wise enough to be uniformly generous.

On the arrival of Hugh at Durazzo, he was at first received with respect,
and entertained with honour and profusion; and thus finding himself at
ease, he was induced to remain for a time in confident security. Suddenly,
however, without a pretence for such violence, he was arrested, together
with his train, and sent to Constantinople, some authors say, _in
chains_.[155]

Nevertheless, it is not probable that Alexius dared to carry his
inhospitality so far; and one of the historians[156] of the day
particularly marks, that the prisoner was treated with every testimony of
respect. Guibert also ventures a supposition respecting the motives of
Alexius, far superior to the general steril course of ancient chronicles.
He imagines--and I wonder that the idea has not been adopted by any
one--that the object of the Greek emperor, in confining Hugh, was to
obtain from him, before the other princes should arrive, that act of
homage which he intended to exact from all. The brother of the king of
France himself having taken the oath, would be so strong a precedent, that
it is more than probable, Alexius[157] fancied the rest of the crusaders
would easily agree to do that which their superior in rank had done
previous to their arrival.

At Philippopoli[158] the news of Hugh's imprisonment reached the army of
Godfrey de Bouillon, and with the prompt but prudent firmness of that
great leader's character, he instantly sent messengers to Alexius,
demanding the immediate liberation of the Count of Vermandois and his
companions, accompanying the message with a threat of hostilities, if the
demand were not conceded.

Godfrey then marched on to Adrianople,[159] where he was met by his
deputies, bringing the refusal of the emperor to comply with his request:
in consequence of which the country was instantly given up to pillage; and
so signal were the effects of this sort of vengeance, that Alexius
speedily found himself forced to put his prisoners at liberty. The moment
that a promise to this effect was received, Godfrey recalled his forces;
and with wonderful discipline and subordination, they instantly abandoned
the ravages they were before licensed to commit, and marched on peacefully
towards Constantinople. Had the armies of the Cross continued to show such
obedience and moderation, Palestine would now have been Christian.

In the neighbourhood of the imperial city Godfrey pitched his tents, and
the innumerable[160] multitude of his steel-clad warriors struck terror
into the heart of the fearful monarch of the east.[161] To the Count of
Vermandois, however, it was a sight of joy; and issuing forth from
Constantinople with his friends and followers, he galloped forward to the
immense camp of the crusaders, where, casting himself into the arms of
Godfrey,[162] he gave himself up to such transports of delight and
gratitude, that the bystanders were moved to tears.

The emperor now turned the whole force of his artful mind to wring from
Godfrey an act of homage, and for several weeks he continued, by every
sort of fluctuating baseness, to disturb his repose, and to irritate his
followers. At one time, he was all professions of kindness and liberality;
at another, he breathed nothing but warfare and opposition. Sometimes the
markets were shut to the crusaders, sometimes the private stores of the
emperor himself were opened.

At length, after having twice defeated the bands of plunderers sent by
Alexius to attack him,[163] Godfrey gave way to his wrath, and for six
days successively ravaged the country round Constantinople with fire and
sword. Alexius on this again changed his conduct, and with every
profession of regard demanded an interview with the chief of the
crusaders, offering his son as a hostage for his good faith. With this
safeguard Godfrey, followed by several other noble knights, entered
Constantinople, and proceeded to the imperial palace, clothed in his robes
of peace,[164] and bearing purple and ermine and gold, instead of the iron
panoply of war.[165]

The great leader was received by the emperor with the highest distinction,
was honoured with the kiss of peace, and underwent that curious ceremony
of an adoption of honour (as it was then called) as son to the
emperor.[166] He was clothed with imperial robes,[167] and the monarch,
calling him his son, nominally placed his empire at Godfrey's disposal. In
return for the distinctions he had received--and probably pressed by Hugh,
Count of Vermandois, who loved not to stand alone, in having yielded
homage to Alexius--Godfrey consented to give the emperor his hand,
according to the feudal forms of France, and to declare himself his
liegeman.

His fears dissipated by this concession, and his hopes of winning the
princes who were to follow, by so illustrious an example, raised to the
highest pitch, Alexius loaded Godfrey and his followers with magnificent
presents, and suffered them to depart. Peace was now permitted to remain
unbroken; and after having refreshed themselves for some days, the army of
the crusaders passed the Hellespont, and encamped at Chalcedon,[168] to
wait the arrival of their brethren.

It is more than probable that Godfrey was induced to quit the original
place of rendezvous by the solicitations of Alexius, who took care, it has
been since observed, to guard his capital from the presence of any two of
the crusading hosts at one time.

Boemond, prince of Tarentum, and son of the famous Guiscard, had quitted
Italy shortly after the departure of Godfrey from Loraine. Various tales
are told of the manner in which he first declared his purpose of joining
the crusade. Some have asserted, that on hearing of the expedition, while
engaged in the siege of Amalfi, he dashed his armour to pieces with his
battle-axe,[169] and caused it to be formed into small crosses, which he
distributed among his soldiery. Others reduce the anecdote to a less
chivalrous but perhaps more civilized degree of energy, and state, that
he caused his mantle to be cut into crosses for his troops.[170]

As many relate the tale, it is likely to have had some foundation; and
there is no doubt that Boemond abandoned all his vast possessions in
Italy, with the reserve only of Tarentum, and devoted himself to the wars
of the Cross. His presence might have proved more generally advantageous
to the cause, had he not, by this enthusiastic renunciation, given himself
other motives in the warfare before him, besides those of religion and
humanity. He had naturally in his veins quite sufficient of the blood of
Guiscard to require no additional stimulus to the desire of conquering for
himself. He was nevertheless one of the best soldiers of the Cross, so far
as military skill availed--bold, powerful, keen, and active; and
possessing that sort of shrewd and even wily art, which, joined with his
other qualities, formed an enterprising and successful leader, more
perhaps than a distinguished knight.

With him, however, came the noblest of all the Christian Chivalry,
Tancred--whose valour, generosity, enthusiasm, and courtesy have been the
theme of so many a song--of whom Tasso, in seeking to describe him in the
highest language of poetry, could say nothing more than truth,

  Vien poi Tancredi, e non è alcun fra tanti
  Tranne Rinaldo--O feritor maggiore,
  O più bel di maniere e di sembianti
  O più eccelso ed entrepido di core.[171]

Few characters can be conceived more opposed to each other than those of
the relations,[172] Tancred and Boemond; and yet we find Tancred willingly
serving in the army of the Prince of Tarentum, as second to that chief.
The same unambitious modesty is to be discovered throughout the whole
history of the young knight; and though we ever behold him opposed to
meannesses, by whomsoever they may be adopted, we still see him willing to
take upon himself the danger and labour of an inferior station.

Under the banners of these chiefs marched a host of Italian and Norman
nobles; the army, it is said, amounting to ten thousand horse,[173] and an
immense multitude of foot, in which view of the forces we must remember
that only men of noble birth were usually admitted to fight on
horseback.[174] These troops were even increased as they marched to the
seacoast of Apulia; and the great body of those Normans who, not a century
before, had taken complete possession of the country, now left it for the
Holy Land.

Mills,[175] following his particular theory, supposes Urban the pope to
smile with triumphant self-gratulation on seeing the army of Boemond
depart; but it seems strange, that the prelate should rejoice in the
absence of the very men by whom he had been always protected, while his
enemies remained, and were even in possession of the old church of St.
Peter[176] at Rome, as we learn by a contemporary crusader.

The forces of Boemond and Tancred landed at Durazzo, and made their way,
with much more regularity than could have been expected, through
Epirus.[177] They were harassed, however, on their march by various
skirmishes with the Greek troops, who did every thing in their power to
destroy the crusading army, although Alexius[178] had sent messengers to
Boemond himself congratulating him on his arrival, and promising every
kind of assistance. These attacks, nevertheless, only amounted to a petty
degree of annoyance, till the host of the Cross came to the passage of
the Axius. Here, a part of the forces having traversed the river with
almost the whole of the cavalry, the rear of the army was suddenly
attacked by an infinitely superior body of Greeks.[179]

Tancred, already on the other side, lost not a moment, but, spurring his
horse into the water, followed by about two thousand knights, he charged
the Greeks so vigorously as to drive them back with considerable loss in
killed and prisoners. When brought before Boemond, the captives justified
themselves by avouching the commands of the emperor, and Tancred would
fain have pursued and exterminated the forces of the perfidious Greek.
Boemond, however, more prudently forbore, and, without retaliation of any
kind, advanced to Adrianople.

I see no reason to qualify this moderation as subtilty, which Mills has
not scrupled to do. Boemond was artful beyond all doubt, but this was not
a fair instance of any thing but wisdom and self-command. At Adrianople,
well knowing the character of Alexius, to whom he had frequently been
opposed, and foreseeing that his troops might be irritated by various acts
of annoyance,[180] Boemond drew up his army, and, in a calm and temperate
speech, represented to them that they had taken up arms in the cause of
Christ, and therefore that it was their duty to refrain from all acts of
hostility towards their fellow-christians.

Shortly after this, the Prince of Tarentum was met by deputies from the
emperor, inviting him to come on with all speed to Constantinople, leaving
his army behind, under the command of Tancred. Boemond at first refused to
trust himself in the power of his ancient enemy,[181] but Godfrey of
Bouillon having visited him in person, and guarantied his security, the
Italian chief agreed to the arrangement proposed, and accompanied the Duke
of Loraine to the imperial palace. Gold and dominion were always motives
of great force with the mind of Boemond, and Alexius did not spare such
temptations, either present or to come, for the purpose of inducing the
Prince of Tarentum to do homage to the eastern empire. His promises were
limitless, and the actual presents[182] which he heaped upon the
Normo-Italian immense. He also granted him, it is said, a territory in
Romania, consisting, in length, of as much ground as a horse could travel
in fifteen days; and, in breadth,[183] of as much as could be traversed in
eight; besides which, he loaded him with jewels and gold, and rich
vestments, till Boemond, from one of his most inveterate enemies, became
one of his firmest allies. This, indeed, proceeded from no confidence or
friendship on either side. Boemond still felt how little Alexius could
forgive the injuries he had in former days inflicted, and dared not trust
himself to eat of the meat set before him at the emperor's table.

Alexius, with all the penetration of his race, evidently dived into the
Norman's thoughts, and saw that he aspired even to the imperial crown
itself.[184] No reliance, therefore, existed between them; but, on the one
hand, Boemond, for considerations of interest, forgot his dignity, and did
homage to the emperor, while Alexius, on his part, agreed that the homage
should be void, if the promises he made were not exactly fulfilled.[185]

The news of his relation's humiliation soon reached Tancred, who was
leading on their united forces towards Constantinople; and though
unquestionably, the lamentation attributed to him by his biographer[186]
is somewhat more poetical than real, little doubt can be entertained that
the gallant prince was painfully struck by Boemond's disgraceful
concessions. Hugh of Vermandois had done homage to obtain his liberty;
Godfrey of Bouillon, to restore peace and unanimity between the Christian
emperor and the crusaders; Boemond _sold_ his homage, with no palliating
circumstance.

The determination of Tancred seems to have been taken almost immediately
on hearing this news, and marching upon Constantinople as if it were his
intention to follow exactly the course of his relation, he suddenly
crossed the Hellespont[187] without giving notice to any one, and joined
the army of Godfrey at Chalcedon.[188]

This conduct greatly irritated Alexius, and he made several efforts to
bring Tancred back without success; but the arrival of Raimond de St.
Gilles, Count of Toulouse, with the immense army of the Languedocian
crusaders, soon called the attention of the emperor in another direction.
The Count of Toulouse has been very variously represented, and no doubt
can exist that he was a bold and skilful leader, a courageous and resolute
man. He was, it is said, intolerant and tenacious of reverence, fond of
pomp and display, and withal revengeful, though his revenge was always of
a bold and open character. Not so his avarice, which led him to commit as
many pitiful meannesses as ever sprang from that basest of desires. He was
proud, too, beyond all question; but where his covetousness did not
overbalance the other great principle of his nature, he maintained, in
his general conduct, that line of moral firmness which dignifies pride,
and raises it almost to a virtue.

Under the banners of the Count of Toulouse marched the gay Chivalry of all
the south of France--Gascons, and Provençals, and Auvergnats--people, in
whose hearts the memory of Saracen invasions from Spain was still fresh;
and whose quick and passionate dispositions had at once embraced with
enthusiasm the holy war. A glorious train of lords and knights followed
their noble chief, and the legate of the pope, as well as several other
bishops, gave religious dignity to this body of the crusaders.

The count directed his course by Sclavonia towards Greece, notwithstanding
that the season was unfavourable, as he set out in winter.[189] During the
journey he displayed, in the highest degree, every quality of a great
commander. Innumerable difficulties, on which we cannot pause, assailed
him even during the first part of his march through the barren and
inhospitable passes which lay between his own fair land and Greece. When
he had reached the dominions of Alexius, whose call for aid he had not
forgotten, the count imagined, to use the words of his chaplain, that he
was in his native land, so much did he rely upon the welcome and
protection of the Greek emperor. But he, like the chiefs who had preceded
him, was deceived, and the same series of harassing persecutions awaited
him on the way. An act of seasonable[190] but barbarous vengeance,
however, in mutilating and disfiguring several of the prisoners, so much
frightened the savage hordes which the emperor had cast upon his track,
that the rest of the journey passed in comparative tranquillity. Like
those who had gone before, the count was permitted to enter the imperial
city with but few attendants.

Here the same proposal of rendering homage was made to Raimond which had
been addressed to the other leaders of the crusade, but he rejected it at
once with dignified indignation, and maintained his resolution with
unalterable firmness.[191] The means which had been tried with Godfrey of
Bouillon were now employed against the Count of Toulouse; and as no very
strong body of crusaders was soon expected from Europe, the emperor seems
confidently to have anticipated the destruction of the Languedocian force.
The Bosphorus lay between it and the armies of Godfrey, of Hugh, of
Boemond, and of Robert of Flanders,[192] whose arrival we have not thought
it necessary to dwell upon, as it was accompanied by no circumstance of
interest. Alexius had taken especial care, that no vessels should remain
on the other side of the Straits, which would facilitate the return of the
crusaders even if they should wish it,[193] and Boemond was devoted to his
cause from motives of interest.

Under these circumstances Alexius did not scruple to order a night attack
to be made upon the camp of the French knights. At first it proved
successful, and many fell under the treacherous sword of the Greeks. At
length, however, the Languedocians recovered from their surprise, repulsed
the enemy with great loss, and for some time gave full way to their
indignation. Raimond even resolved to declare war against the emperor, but
abandoned his intention on finding that the other princes would not
succour him, and that Boemond threatened to join his arms to those of
Alexius. Thus upheld, the emperor still continued to insist on the homage
of the count; but Raimond declared that he would sooner lay down his head
upon the block than yield to such an indignity.[194] "He had come,"[195]
he said, "to fight for one Lord, which was Christ, and for him he had
abandoned country, and goods, and lands, but no other lord would he
acknowledge; though, if the emperor would, in person, lead the host
towards Constantinople, he would willingly put himself and his troops
under his august command."

All that could ultimately be obtained from him, even at the intercession
of his companions in arms, was a vow that he would neither directly nor
indirectly do any act which could militate against the life or honour of
the emperor.[196]

This concession, however, seemed to satisfy Alexius, upon whose weakness
the ambitious spirit of Boemond was pressing somewhat too hard. The power
of Raimond of Toulouse, the monarch saw, might be used as a good
counterpoise to the authority which the Prince of Tarentum was inclined to
assume; and in consequence, Alexius soon completely changed his conduct,
and loaded the count with distinctions and courtesy. The pleasures of the
imperial palace, the rivalry which the artful emperor contrived to raise
up between him and Boemond, and the false but polished society of the
Greek court, excited and pleased the Count of Toulouse, who remained some
time in the midst of pomp and enjoyment.

His character, also, though it had much of the steady firmness of the
north, had, in common with that of his countrymen in general, a sparkling
and vivacious urbanity, a splendid yet easy grace, which suited the taste
of the Greeks much more than the simple manners of the northern crusaders.
Indeed, to judge from the terms in which she speaks of him, his handsome
person and elegant deportment seem to have made no small impression on the
imagination of the princess Anna,[197] although Raimond had already passed
the middle age.

Boemond, however, had by this time departed, and had marched from
Chalcedon with Godfrey and the rest of the crusading host[198] towards
Nice, the capital of the Turkish kingdom of Roum.[199] His honour demanded
the presence of the Count of Toulouse, and abandoning the pleasures of
Constantinople, he superintended the embarkation of his troops, and
hastened to join the rest of his companions in arms.

Scarcely had the forces of the count quitted Constantinople, when another
army appeared under the walls of that city. Its principal leader was
Robert, Duke of Normandy--a man, debauched, weak, and unstable; endowed
with sufficient talents to have dignified his illustrious station, had he
possessed that rare quality of mind which may be called _conduct_. He was
eloquent in speech, brave in the field, skilful in warlike dispositions,
and personally humane, even to excess;[200] but at the same time he was
versatile as the winds, and so easily persuaded, that the common
expression, _he had no will of his own_, was, perhaps, more applicable to
him than to any other man that ever existed.

On the first preaching of the crusade, he had caught the flame of
enthusiasm with others, and perhaps not more than those around him; for we
must not take the immediate sale of his dutchy of Normandy to William
Rufus as a proof of his zeal. It was, in fact, but a proof of that
wretched facility which ultimately brought about his ruin. The price he
obtained,[201] was only ten thousand marks of silver, but with so petty a
sum this modern Esau thought he could conquer worlds. With him was
Stephen, Count of Blois, more famous in the council than the field,[202]
while all the Norman and English crusaders of rank, together with Eustace,
brother of Godfrey of Bouillon,[203] joined themselves to his forces.

Thus, followed by a numerous and well-equipped army, Robert took the way
of Italy, and having encountered the pope at Lucca, proceeded to Apulia,
where he remained to pass the winter. Here, however,[204] many deserted
his army, and returned to their native land, and several were drowned,
subsequently, in their passage to Durazzo; but, on the whole, the march of
Robert of Normandy was more easy and less disastrous than that of any
other chief of the crusaders.

We find no mention of any attack or annoyance on the part of Alexius; and,
on the arrival of the Norman host at Constantinople, the oath of homage
seems to have been presented and received, with a sort of quiet
indifference well according with the indolent and careless character of
the Duke.[205] Alexius simply informed the leaders, that Godfrey, Boemond,
Hugh, and the rest had undergone the ceremony proposed. "We are not
greater than they,"[206] replied Robert, and the vows were taken without
hesitation.

Loaded with presents, and supplied with money and provisions, of both
which Robert stood in great want, the Norman crusaders now passed the
Hellespont, and marched towards Nice to join their companions. The timid
Alexius thus found himself delivered from the last body of these terrific
allies; and, indeed, the description given of their arrival, in rapid
succession, before Constantinople, is not at all unlike the end of
Camaralzaman's history in the Arabian Nights, where no sooner is one army
disposed of, than another is seen advancing towards the city from a
different quarter of the globe.




CHAPTER VI.

_Germ of After-misfortunes already springing up in the Crusade--Siege of
Nice--First Engagement with the Turks--Siege continued--The Lake
occupied--Surrender of Nice to the Emissaries of Alexius--Discontent--
March towards Antioch--The Army divides into two Bodies--Battle of
Doryloeum--Dreadful March through Phrygia--Adventures of Baldwin and
Tancred--Arrival at Antioch--The City invested._


One of the most unfortunate events which occurred to the crusaders in
their march was their stay at Constantinople, for it was the remote but
certain cause of many other evils. The jealousies and differences raised
up among them by the intriguing spirit of Alexius were never entirely done
away; and besides this, the intervention of petty motives, long
discussions, and schemes of individual aggrandizement chilled the fervour
of zeal, and thus weighed down the most energetic spring of the
enterprise.

Enthusiasm will conquer difficulties, confront danger and death, and
change the very nature of the circumstances in which it is placed, to
encouragement and hope; but it will not bear to be mingled with less
elevated feelings and considerations. The common ambitions and passions of
life, cold reasonings, and thoughtful debates, deaden it and put it out;
and amid the intrigues of interest, or the speculations of selfishness, it
is extinguished like a flame in the foul air of a vault. A great deal of
the enthusiasm of the crusade died away amid the bickerings of
Constantinople; and even the cowardly effeminacy of the Greeks proved in
some degree contagious, for the army of the Count of Toulouse, we find,
had at one time nearly disbanded itself. The luxury of the most luxurious
court of Europe, too, was not without its effect upon the crusaders, and
the memory of the delights of the imperial city was more likely to afford
subjects of disadvantageous comparisons, when opposed to the hardships of
Palestine, than the remembrance of the turbulent and governless realm from
which they had first begun their march.

The greatest misfortune of all, however--the cause of many of their vices,
and almost all their miseries,--was the want of one acknowledged leader,
whom it would have been treason to disobey. Each chief was his own king,
but he was not the king of even those who served under him. Many who had
followed his banner to the field were nearly his equals in power, and it
was only over his immediate vassals that he had any but conditional right
of command. In respect to his vassals themselves, this right was much
affected by circumstances; and over the chiefs around him, he had no
control whatever. Thus, unity of design was never to be obtained; and
discord, the fatal stumblingblock of all great undertakings, was always
ready in the way, whenever the folly, the passions, or the selfishness of
any individual leader chose to dash upon it the hopes of himself and his
companions.

Nevertheless, during the siege of Nice, which was the first undertaking of
the crusaders, a considerable degree of harmony seems to have prevailed
among the leaders. Each, it is true, conducted his part of the attack
according to his own principles, but each seemed happy to assist the
other, and we hear of no wrangling for idle punctilios. The morals, too,
of the troops were hitherto pure, reaching a much higher point of virtue,
indeed, than might have been anticipated from the great mixture of
classes. I do not mean to say that they were free from vice, or were
exempt from the follies of their nature or their age; but the noble and
dignified manner in which the chiefs of the crusade, and the people in
general, bore the conduct of Alexius (mentioned hereafter), would lead me
to believe that they had preserved a considerable share of purity and
singleness of heart.

The first body of the crusaders which reached the city of Nice was that
led by Godfrey of Bouillon. He was not alone, however, being accompanied
by Hugh, Count of Vermandois; and very shortly after, the troops of Robert
of Flanders and Boemond of Tarentum arrived, and took up their position on
the northern side, while those of Godfrey had marked their camp towards
the east. The Count of Toulouse and the Bishop of Puy followed, and sat
down before the southern side,[207] leaving the west open for the Duke of
Normandy, who was expected from day to day.[208]

This city, the capital of the kingdom of Roum, was occupied by the
Seljukian Turks, and strongly defended by a solid wall, flanked by three
hundred and fifty towers. It was situated in the midst of a fertile plain,
and the waters of the lake Ascanius, to the west, gave it a facility of
communication with a large extent of country. The army of the crusaders,
after the arrival of the Count of Toulouse,[209] waited not the coming of
Robert of Normandy, but began the siege in form. Their forces were already
immense; and after the junction of Peter the Hermit with the ruins of his
multitude, and the Duke of Normandy with his powerful army, the amount of
the fighting men is said to have been six hundred thousand, without
comprising those who did not carry arms.[210] The number of knights[211]
is stated to have reached nearly two hundred thousand, which left a fair
proportion of inferior soldiers.

The general disposition of the troops had been made before the arrival of
the Count of Toulouse, and he marched his division towards the spot
assigned him on the Sunday after Ascension-day.[212] His coming, however,
was destined to be signalized by the first regular battle between the
Turks and their Christian invaders.

Soliman, or Kilidge Aslan, the sultaun of Roum, on the approach of the
crusaders, had left his capital[213] defended by a strong garrison, and
travelling through his dominions, hastened in every direction the levies
of his subjects. He soon collected a considerable body of horse,[214] and
leading them to the mountains which overlooked the plain of Nice, he sent
down two messengers to the city to concert with the governor a double
attack upon the camp of the Christians.

The messengers fell into the hands of the outposts of Godfrey. One was
killed on the spot, and the other, under the fear of death, betrayed the
secrets of the sultaun, giving at the same time an exaggerated account of
his forces.[215] Information of Soliman's approach was instantly sent to
Raimond of Toulouse, who was advancing from Nicomedia,[216] and by a
night-march he succeeded in joining the army of the Cross in time.
Scarcely had he taken up his position, when the Moslems began to descend
from the mountains, clad like the Christians in steel,[217] and borne by
horses fleet as the wind. Divided into two bodies,[218] the one attacked
the wearied troops of the Count of Toulouse, seeking to force its way
into the city, while the other fell upon the quarters of Godfrey of
Bouillon.

Doubtless Soliman thought to meet, in the immense multitude before him, a
wild and undisciplined crowd, like that of Peter the Hermit; but he soon
found bitterly his mistake. The crusaders received him every where with
chivalric valour, repulsed him on all points, became in turn the
assailants, and the plain round Nice grew one general scene of conflict.
The charging of the cavalry, the ringing of the lances and the swords upon
shields and corslets, the battle-cries of the Christians, and the
_techbir_ of the Turks; the shouts, the screams, the groans, rose up, we
are told, in a roar horrible to hear.[219]

At length, finding that the sally he had expected was not made, Soliman
retreated to the mountains; but it was only to repeat the attempt the
following day.[220] In this, although the besieged now comprehended his
intention, and issued forth upon the Christians on the one side, while he
attacked them on the other, he was not more fortunate than before. He was
again repelled with great loss, owning his astonishment at the lion-like
courage of the Christian leaders, who with a thousand lances would often
charge and put to flight twenty times the number of Turkish horsemen.

According to a barbarous custom prevalent at that time, and which even
descended to a much later period, the crusaders hewed off the heads of the
fallen Moslems,[221] and cast many of them into the city. Others were sent
to Constantinople in token of victory; and Alexius, as a sign of gratitude
and rejoicing, instantly despatched large presents to the principal chiefs
of the crusade, with great quantities of provisions for the army, which
had long been straitened to a fearful degree.

After the defeat of Soliman,[222] the siege was pressed with renewed
vigour; and battering-rams, catapults, and mangonels were plied
incessantly against the walls, while moveable towers of wood, called
beffroys, filled with armed men, were rolled close to the fortifications,
for the purpose of carrying on the fight hand to hand with the enemy, and
of endeavouring to effect a lodgment on the battlements.

In the mean while

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